ItdwardLMveTettJiccte. 


TARRY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 


'j^^y^ 


Edward  Everett  Hale. 
From  a  recent  photograph  by  C.  M.  Bell,  Washington. 


TARRY  AT   HOME 
TRAVELS 


BY 


EDWARD   EVERETT  HALE 

AUTHOR   OF    "  THE   MAN    WITHOUT   A    COUNTRY,"    "  MEMORIES 
OF  A   HUNDRED    YEARS,"    ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


"  My  mind  impels  me  to  lorite  on  places  ichere 
I  have  been  and  on  some  of  the  people  ivhoni  I 
have  seen  in  them." 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd, 
1907 

All  rights  reserved 


COPTRIGHT,  1905,  1906, 
By  the  outlook   COMPANY. 

Copyright,  1900, 
By  the   MACMILLAN   COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.      Published  October,  i 

Keprinted  January,  1907. 


1906. 


Notiuool!  ilrcas 

J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

The  papers  which  make  up  this  book  were 
printed  in  The  Outlook  with  the  same  title.  The 
first  gives  the  plan  and  purpose  which  was  sub- 
stantially held  to  through  the  series. 

As  we  now  collect  them,  we  are  able  fre- 
quently to  add  in  detail  suggestions  which  have 
been  made  by  courteous  correspondents,  —  for 
whose  kindness  I  thank  them  heartily. 

It  seemed  desirable  at  the  end  of  the  series 
of  travel  proper  to  include  two  papers  on  the 
City  of  Washington,  which  had  also  been  printed 
in  The  Outlook. 


EDWAKD  E.   HALE. 


Matuxuck,  Rhode  Island, 
July,  1906. 


CONTEXTS 


CHAPTER 

PAGE 

I. 

Introductory        

1 

II. 

The  State  of  Maine 

25 

III. 

New  Hampshire 

64 

IV. 

Vermont          

96 

V. 

Massachusetts 

139 

YI. 

Rhode  Island        .... 

198 

VII. 

Connecticut 

228 

VIII. 

Xew  York      

277 

IX. 

Washington  then  and  now 

349 

X. 

The  Xew  Washington 

398 

Index 



427 

LIST   OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Edward  Everett  Hale Frontispiece 

From  a  recent  photograph  by  C.  M.  Bell,  Washington. 

PAGE 

Eastport  and  Passamaquoddy  Bay     ....        5 

From  a  print  published  in  London  in  1839. 

Lord  Ashburtox  (Alexander  Baring)       ...        9 
From  a  mezzotint  by  Wagstaff,  after  the  painting  by  Sir 
Thomas  Lawrence. 

Daniel  Webster 12 

From  an  engraving  by  H.  Wright  Smith,  after  the  paint- 
ing by  J.  Ames. 

John  A.  Andrew,  1818-1867 14 

He  was  a  prominent  antislavery  advocate,  and  a  member 
of  the  Massachusetts  legislature,  but  he  is  best  known  as 
the  Republican  governor  of  Massachusetts  throughout  the 
Civil  War.  He  was  one  of  the  most  active  of  the  "  war 
governors." 

Outline  Map  of  Maine 17 

Mount  Katahdin 20 

Nathan  Hale 22 

A  reproduction  of  an  old  engraving  of  the  author's  father. 

Kev.  Samuel  Longfellow 27 

From  a  photograph. 

Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow 29 

From  a  characteristic  engraving  of  Longfellow  in  early  life, 
at  the  time  when  he  was  most  closely  associated  with  the 
state  of  Maine. 

Judge  Stephen  Longfellow  .....      31 

Father  of  Henry  Wadsworth  and  Samuel  Longfellow. 
From  a  painting. 


X  LIST   OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGB 

BovvDoiN  College  in  its  Early  Days  ...      35 

From  an  old  print. 

The  Falls  of  Sault  on  the  Chaudiere  ...  39 
Characteristic  scene  on  the  route  of  the  march  of  Arnold's 
detachment  in  1775.  From  "Arnold's  Expedition  to  Que- 
bec," by  John  Codman,  2d,  who  followed,  on  foot  or  in 
canoes,  for  the  greater  part  of  the  distance,  the  army's 
course  through  the  Kennebec,  Dead  River,  and  Chaudiere 
regions,  and  visited  Quebec  and  its  environs. 

James  Bowdoix,  1752-1811 43 

From  a  photograph  of  the  painting  by  Gilbert  Stuart,  in 
the  Walker  Art  Building,  Bowdoin  College. 

William  DeWitt  Hyde,  D.D 46 

President  of  Bowdoin  College  since  1885. 

Professor  Alpheus  Spring  Packard,  1839-        .        .      49 
From  a  photograph  of  the  painting  by  F.  P.  Vinton,  in  the 
Walker  Art  Building,  Bowdoin  College. 

General  Henry  Kxox.  17.50-1806  ....       51 

From  the  painting  by  Charles  Willson  Peale,  17^*0,  in  the 
old  State  House,  Philadelphia. 

The  Longfellow  House  in  Portland         ...      55 

Hox.  Elihu  B.  Washburxe,  1816-1887         ...      57 
United  States  Minister  to  France,  1869-1877.    He  was  the 
only  foreign  representative  who  remained  in  Paris  through 
both  the  siege  and  the  commune.     He  had  previously  been 
member  of  Congress  from  Illinois,  185:3-1869. 

James  G.  Blaine 61 

From  a  photograph  by  Sarony. 

Arnold's  March  through  the  Wilderness       .         .      63 
A  curious  old  copperplate  engraving,  illustrating  the  diffi- 
culties wliich  Arnold's  expedition  encountered.    From  one 
of  the  very  early  American  histories. 

Mount  Washington,  and  the  White  Hills       .        .      65 
From  near  Crawford's.      Reproduced  from  an  engraving 
made  in  1836,  about  the  time  of  Dr.  Hale's  first  ascent. 

The  Dixville  Notch 68 


LIST   OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xi 

PAGB 

Ox  THE  Presidential  Range 70 

Characteristic  view  of  the  mountain  summits  of  this  range. 

Eleazar  Wheelock,  1711-1779       .         .         ...      72 
From  a  painting  in  the  possession  of  Dartmouth  College, 
of  wliich  he  was  the  first  president,  1770-1779. 

Lord  Dartmouth 75 

From  a  painting  in  the  possession  of  Dartmouth  College. 

John  Paul  Jones 79 

From  the  original  miniature  in  the  United  States  Naval 
Institute,  Annapolis,  Maryland.  Tliis  exceedingly  interest- 
ing miniature,  by  the  Countess  de  Vendahl,  contirms  or  is 
conlirmed  by  the  celebrated  bust  by  Houdon,  modelled  in  the 
same  year,  1780.  It  was  given  by  the  noble  painter  to  Jones, 
and  from  him  inherited  by  his  niece.  Miss  Janette  Taylor  of 
Dumfries,  Scotland,  wlio.  in  1.S31.  presented  it  to  Lieutenant 
A.  B.  Pinkham,  U.S.N.,  in  acknowledgment  of  his  generosity 
in  rebuilding  the  cottage  in  whic'h  her  uncle  had  been  born. 
Lieutenant  Pinkham  deposited  it  in  the  United  States  Naval 
Lyceum  at  the  Brooklyn  Na^'>'  Yard,  and  on  the  breaking  up 
of  the  Lj'ceum  it  was  transferred  to  Annapolis. 

The  Broad  Arrow 81 

"The  broad-headed  arrow  was  a  mark  assumed  at  the 
time  of  the  Edwards  (when  it  was  considered  the  most  pow- 
erful M'eapon  of  attack),  as  distinguishing  the  property  of 
the  king;  and  this  mark  has  been  continued  down  to  the 
present  day.  Everj-  article  supplied  to  his  Majesty's  service 
from  the  arsenals  and  dockyards  is  thickly  studded  with  this 
mark,  and  to  be  found  in  possession  of  any  property  so 
marked  is  a  capital  offence,  as  it  designates  that  property 
to  be  the  Kiiif/s  oiV7i."  —  From  "The  King's  Own,"  by 
Captain  Marryat. 

Dartmouth  College 83 

From  an  engraving  printed  in  London  in  1832. 

Dr.  William  Jewktt  Tucker 85 

President  of  Dartmouth  College  since  1893. 

Phillips  Academy.  Exeter,  New  Hampshire     .        .      87 

From  a  recent  photograph. 

Field-Marshal  Conway  ......       89 

Henry  Seymour  Cotiway,  1721-1795,  was  an  English  soldier 
and  Whig  politician,  the  second  sou  of  the  first  Lord  Conway, 


xii  LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

and  cousin  of  Horace  Walpole.  He  served  with  distinction 
in  the  British  Army,  and  was  a  Member  of  Parliament,  1741- 
1784.  It  was  lie  who  moved  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  in 
1770,  and  he  was  a  vigorous  ojiponent  of  the  policy  of  the 
British  government  toward  the  American  colonies.  This 
portrait  is  made  from  a  copi^erplate  engraving  published  in 
Loudon  in  1798. 

John  Stark,  1728-1822 91 

From  the  excellent  portrait  painted  some  time  after  the 
Revolution  by  John  Trumbull.  This  famous  painter  (17.5(>- 
1843)  served  in  the  Revolution,  attaining  the  rank  of  colonel 
and  deputy  adjutant-general ;  studied  in  London  under 
West  and  on  the  Continent,  and  settled  as  a  portrait  painter 
in  New  York  in  1804.  In  addition  to  his  portraits  he  painted 
many  famous  historic  scenes,  including  the  four  pictures  in 
the  Rotunda  of  the  Capitol  at  Washington  ("  The  Declaration 
of  Independence,"  "The  Surrender  of  Burgoyne,"  "The 
Surrender  of  Cornwallis,"  "  The  Resignation  of  Washing- 
ton ").  He  was  the  son  of  Jonathan  Ti-unibull,  of  Connecti- 
cut, q.v. 

The  Green  Mountains 97 

From  a  recent  photograph.  A  characteristic  scene  in  one 
of  the  most  picturesque,  attractive,  and  enjoyable  portions 
of  New  England. 

General  Wolfe,  1727-1759 100 

From  his  sixteenth  year,  James  Wolfe  was  actively  engaged 
in  warfare,  beginning  with  Dettingen  in  1743.  He  com- 
manded a  division  under  Amherst  at  the  siege  and  capture 
of  Louisburg  in  1758.  He  died  in  his  hour  of  victory  at 
Quebec. 

The  Assault  on  Quebec 101 

This  "View  of  the  Taking  of  Quebeck  by  the  English 
Forces  commanded  by  General  Wolfe,  September  13th,  1759" 
is  reproduced  from  a  rare  and  valuable  copperplate  engrav- 
ing published  in  the  London  Mar/azine  in  1760.  It  is  emi- 
nently characteristic  of  very  old  prints;  for  instance,  some 
of  the  soldiers  in  the  attacking  force  are  nearly  as  tall  as 
the  cliffs  they  are  so  valiantly  scaling. 

Ethan  Allen 104 

This  engraving,  by  Hollyer,  is  from  a  spirited  statue  of  the 
hero  of  Ticonderoga.  The  attitude  represents  the  moment 
when  he  summoned  the  surprised  garrison  to  surrender,  "In 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS  xiii 


the  name  of  the  Great  Jehovah  and  the  Continental  Con- 
gress ! "  Vide  the  reference  to  Allen  in  the  chapter  on  Con- 
necticut.   No  portrait  exists  of  the  hero  of  Ticonderoga. 

View  of  Burlington,  Vermont 106 

From  a  copperplate  engraving  of  a  drawing  made  about 
seventy  years  ago. 

Samuel  de  Champlain 112 

Defeat  of  the  Iroquois  at  Lake  Champlain  .        .    115 

Of  the  numerous  pictures  portraying  this  historic  incident, 
the  present  one  has  the  special  interest  of  being  a  facsimile 
of  Champlain's  engraving,  in  the  1613  edition  of  his  "  Voy- 
ages.' '    Champlain  himself  occupies  the  centre  of  the  picture. 

Brigadier-General  Simon  Fraser       ....     118 
This  portrait  of  General  Fraser,  1729-1777,  who  commanded 
the  British  forces  at  the  battle  of  Hubbardton,  is  from  a  print 
by  James  Waison  "  in  the  collection  of  C.  R.  Hildeburn." 

Ruins  of  Fort  Ticonderoga 120 

The  old  print  from  which  this  picture  is  made  shows  the 
ruins  of  Fort  Ticonderoga  as  they  existed  just  before  the 
middle  of  the  last  century.  Hardly  a  trace  of  these  ruins 
exists  at  the  present  day  save  a  dim  outline  of  the  location 
of  the  main  walls  of  the  fort. 

General  Stark  at  the  Battle  of  Bennington        .     123 
From  an  old  engraving  by  J.  R.  Chapin  of  the  painting  by 
J.  Godfrey,  published  in  New  York  shortly  before  the  Civil 
War. 

Ma.jor-General  Macomb 127 

Alexander  Macomb,  who  was  bom  at  Detroit  in  1782,  de- 
feated the  British  under  Frevost  at  Plattsburgh  in  1814 ;  he 
was  commander-in-chief  of  the  army,  1828-1841.  The  illus- 
tration is  from  an  engraving  by  J.  B.  Longacre  of  the  paint- 
ing by  T.  Sully. 

Captain  Thom.\s  McDonough 129 

He  defeated  the  British  squadron  under  Downie  on  Lake 
Champlain,  September  11,  1814,  and  was  appointed  captain 
in  that  year.  His  signature  reads  "  Macdonough,"  and  the 
name  was  so  spelled  in  contemporary  books  —  vide  legend 
under  illustration  on  page  13(5;  but  the  accepted  spelling 
nowadays  is  "  McDonough." 


xiv  LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

George  Perkins  Marsh,  1801-1882       ....     132 
He  was  member  of  Congress  from  Vermont,  1842-1849; 
United  States  Minister  to  Tnrkey,  184f)-18o3;  United  States 
Minister  to  Italy,  18(31-1882.    This  picture  is  from  the  por- 
trait by  G.  P.  A.  Healey,  painted  in  1845. 

Mrs.  George  Perkins  Marsh 134 

Commodore  Macdonough's  Farmhouse        .        .        .     136 

This  very  curious  old  engraving,  from  the  Analectic  Maga- 
zine, published  in  Philadelphia  in  1818,  slnjws  the  modest 
farmhouse  in  which  Captain  Macdonougli  (Commodore  by 
courtesy)  lived  on  Cumberland  Bay,  Lake  Champlain,  while 
in  the  distance  are  shown  the  American  forts,  the  town  of 
Plattsburgh.  the  river  Saranac,  the  British  camp,  and  head- 
quarters of  Sir  George  Prevost.  It  is  a  typical  example  of 
the  American  engravings  of  that  day. 

The  State  House,  Boston 138 

"What  Dr.  Holmes  audaciously  called  the  'Hub  of  the 
Universe.'  "  From  a  drawing  by  Charles  Wellington  Fur- 
long. Nowadays  this  dome  is  brilliantly  illuminated  at 
uight  with  electric  lights. 

Pine-tree  Shilling 139 

These  picturesque  coins,  the  first  made  in  the  colonies,  rep- 
resented an  assertion  of  a  measure  of  independence;  they 
figure  in  many  interesting  incidents. 

Henry  Wriothesley,  Third  P^arl  of  Southampton  140 
This  picture  shows  the  famous  Earl  of  Southampton  as  a 
young  man  of  twenty-one;  it  is  from  the  original  picture  at 
Welbeck  Abbey.  "  A  young  man  resplendently  attired.  His 
doublet  is  of  white  satin ;  a  broad  collar,  edged  with  lace, 
half  covers  a  pointed  gorget  of  red  leather,  embroidered  with 
silver  thread ;  the  white  trunks  and  knee-breeches  are  laced 
with  gold;  the  sword-belt,  embroidered  in  red  and  gold,  is 
decorated  at  intervals  with  white  silk  bows;  the  hilt  of  the 
rapier  is  overlaid  with  gold ;  purple  garters,  embroidered  in 
silver  thread,  fasten  the  white  stockings  below  the  knee. 
Light  body  armour,  richly  damascened,  lies  on  the  ground 
to  the  right  of  the  figure;  and  a  white-plumed  helmet  stands 
to  the  left  on  a  table  covered  with  a  cloth  of  purple  velvet 
embroidered  in  gold.  Such  gorgeous  raiment  suggests  that 
its  wearer  bestowed  much  attention  on  his  personal  equip- 
ment. But  the  head  is  more  interesting  than  the  body.  The 
eyes  are  blue,  the  cheeks  pink,  the  complexion  clear,  and 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS  xv 


I'AGE 

the  expression  sedate :  rings  are  in  the  ears ;  beard  and 
moustache  are  at  an  incipient  stage,  and  are  of  the  same 
bright  auburn  hue  as  the  hair  in  a  picture  of  Southami)ton's 
mother  that  is  also  at  Welbeck.  But,  however  scanty  is  the 
down  on  the  youth's  cheek,  the  hair  ou  hisliead  is  hixuriant. 
It  is  worn  very  Ujng,  and  falls  over  and  below  the  shoulder. 
The  colour  is  now  of  walnut,  but  was  originally  of  lighter 
tint."  —  From  Sidney  Lee's  "A  Life  of  William  Shake- 
speare." 

JOIIX   WlNT[IR»)P  ........      143 

Autograph,  seal,  and  portrait  attributed  to  Van  Dyck,  in 
Massachusetts  State  House. 

QuixcY  Railway  Pitcher 14:6 

This  bit  of  Staffordshire  ware  shows  the  first  railway  in 
America,  sometimes  called  the  "  Experiment  "  railroad,  built 
to  carry  stones  to  Bunker  Hill  Monument.  All  the  first  rail- 
cars  were  drawn  by  horses. 

The  Stourbridge  Liox 147 

This  was  the  first  locomotive  in  America  (1829). 

The  Veazie  Railroad,  Baxgor.  Maixe  (l^^SO)  .  .  148 
This  railroad  "had two  locomotives  of  Stevenson's  make 
from  England.  They  had  no  cabs  when  they  arrived  here, 
but  rude  ones  were  attached.  They  burned  wood.  The  ears 
were  also  English;  a  box  resembling  a  stage-coach  was 
placed  on  a  rude  platform.  Each  coach  carried  eight  people. 
The  passengers  entered  the  side.  The  train  ran  about  twelve 
miles  in  forty  minutes.  The  rails,  like  those  of  other  rail- 
roads at  the  time,  were  of  strap-iron  spiked  down.  These 
spikes  soon  rattled  loose,  so  each  engine  carried  a  man 
with  a  sledge-hammer,  who  watched  the  track,  and  when 
he  spied  a  spike  sticking  up  he  would  reach  down  and  drive 
it  home.  These  '  snake  heads,'  as  the  rolled-up  ends  of  the 
strap-iron  were  called,  sometimes  were  forced  up  through 
the  cars  and  did  great  damage.  '  Snake  heads  '  were  as  com- 
mon in  railway  travel  as  snags  in  the  river  in  early  steam- 
boating."  —  From  "  Stage-coach  and  Tavern  Days,"  by  Alice 
Morse  Earle. 

Jonathax  Edwards 150 

From  a  recent  photograph  of  the  original  painting  of  1740, 
when  Edwards  was  thirty-seven. 

JoHX  Adams 151 


xvi  LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

The  Battle  of  Lexington 153 

From  an  old  engraving.     Probably  tbe  most  truthful  pic- 
ture of  this  historic  incident. 

John  Eliot  preaching  to  the  Indians       .         .        .     1.56 
From  the  mural  painting  by  Henry  O.  Walker,  in  the 
State  House,  Boston. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 158 

From  a  portrait  of  about  the  time  of  Emerson's  earlier 
essays. 

Destruction  of  Tea  in  Boston  Harbor     .        .        .     160 
From  an  engraving  in  one  of  the  earliest  American  histories. 
The  men  who  disguised  themselves  as  Indians  and  threw  the 
tea  overboard  were,  it  is  said,  fairly  well-known  to  every  one 
except  the  British  authorities. 

Paul  Revere 161 

From  the  portrait  by  Gilbert  Stuart,  painted  in  1807,  when 
Revere  was  seventy-two. 

Christ  Church,  Salem  Street,  Boston       .        .        .     165 
From  a  drawing  by  Louis  A.  Holman,  l!t03. 

He  said  to  his  friend,  "  If  the  British  march 
By  land  or  sea  from  the  town  to-night. 
Hang  a  lantern  aloft  in  the  belfry  arch 
Of  the  North  Church  tower  as  a  signal  light, — 
One,  if  by  land,  and  two,  if  by  sea ; 
Arid  I  on  the  opposite  shore  will  be. 
Ready  to  ride  and  spread  the  alarm 
Through  every  Middlesex  village  and  farm. 
For  the  country-folk  to  be  up  and  to  arm." 
—  From  Longfellow's  poem,  "  Paul  Revere's  Ride." 

The  Evacuation  of  Boston 167 

From  an  engraving  by  F.  T.  Stuart  of  the  drawing  by 
L.  Hollis.  March  17th  is  still  celebrated  in  Boston  as  Evacua- 
tion Day. 

The  Constitution 169 

From  the  painting  by  Marshall  Johnson.  The  most  spirited 
of  all  the  pictorial  representations  of  this  famous  ship. 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

The  Gkrrymander 172 

After  Governor  Gerry  and  the  Democrats  had  succeeded  in 
electing  a  Democratic  legislature  in  Massachusetts,  1811,  they 
so  divided  and  rearranged  certain  counties  as  to  provide 
Democratic  majorities  in  Federal  counties.  The  editor  of 
the  Boston  C'enthiel,  who  had  fought  against  the  scheme, 
took  a  map  of  one  county,  and  designated  by  particular 
coloring  the  towns  thus  selected  and  hung  it  on  the  wall  of 
his  editorial  room.  "One  day  Gilbert  Stuart,  the  eminent 
painter,  looked  at  the  map,  and  said  the  towns  which  Ru.ssell 
had  thus  distinguished  resembled  some  monstrous  animal. 
He  took  a  pencil  and  with  a  few  touches  represented  a  head, 
wings,  claws,  and  tail.  'There,'  said  Stuart,  'that  will  do 
for  a  salamander.'  Russell,  who  was  busy  with  his  pen, 
looked  up  at  the  hideous  figure,  and  exclaimed, '  Salamander! 
Call  it  Gerry-mander.'  The  word  was  immediately  adopted 
into  the  political  vocabulary  as  a  term  of  reproach  for  those 
who  changed  boundaries  of  districts  for  a  partisan  puri^ose." 
—  From  "  Harper's  Encyclopedia  of  United  States  History." 

Harvard  College  in  1836 173 

This  illustration,  from  one  of  the  best  of  all  the  engravings 
of  Harvard  College,  shows  the  procession  in  honor  of  the 
Second  Centennial  Celebration,  and  also  several  of  the  more 
famous  buildings.  Old  Massachusetts  Hall  is  just  to  the 
right  of  the  centre  of  the  picture,  and  Harvard  Hall  is  to  the 
left,  with  Holden  Chapel  farther  to  the  left,  and  Hollis  and 
Stoughtou  just  behind  it.  Dr.  Hale  graduated  at  Harvard 
in  1839. 

Henry  W.  Longfellow 177 

This  portrait  of  Longfellow  shows  the  professor  who  first 
occupied  the  chair  of  Belles  Lettres  at  Harvard,  and  who 
"  was  not  only  to  teach  us  but  to  quicken  us  and  inspire  us 
and  make  us  glad  that  we  were  admitted  into  tlie  secrets  of 
learning  and  literature.  .  .  .  He  changed  the  routine  of  his 
part  of  the  college  from  the  routine  of  the  class-room  to  the 
•courtesies  and  cordialities  of  a  parlor." 

Departure   of   the   Pilgrim   Fathers   from   Delft 
Haven 179 

From  the  painting  by  Charles  W.  Cope.  The  Pilgrim 
Fathers,  who  landed  at  Plymouth  from  the  Mayjloiver,  sailed 
from  Southampton,  where  they  had  been  joined  by  those 
who  had  left  Delft  Haven,  Holland,  in  the  Speedwell  some 
weeks  before. 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAOE 

Edward  Winslow 181 

The  only  member  of  the  original  band  of  Pilgrim  Fathers 
upon  whose  likeness  we  can  look  to-day.  He  negotiated  a 
treaty  with  Massasoit  in  1()21 :  was  three  times  Governor  of 
Plymouth  Colony ;  made  several  trips  to  England  in  its 
behalf,  and  wrote  several  tracts  about  it. 

Public  Worship  at  Plymouth  by  the  Pilgrims       .     182 

The  W.\yside  Inn,  Sudbury,  Massachusetts     .        .     184 
A  present-day  picture  of  this  very  old  and  famous  inn,  still 
used  as  a  hostelry ;    the  scene   of   the   supposed  telling  of 
Longfellow's  "  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Lnu." 

Senator  IIoau 182 

The  "Coi.iMBiA  "and  the  "Lady  Washington"  ox 

the  Pacific  Coast 187 

This  scene,  from  one  of  Captain  Robert  Gray's  voyages 
that  made  known  the  nature  of  our  northern  Pacific  coast, 
is  from  the  original  draM'ing  in  possession  of  Mrs.  A.  S. 
Twombly,  a  granddaughter  of  Captain  Gray. 

Henry  Laurens  Dawes 190 

Henry  D.  Thoreau 191 

Charles  Sumner 194 

From  a  photograph  in  possession  of  F.  J.  Garrison,  Esq. 

Professor  Asa  (^ray 196 

The  eminent  botanist.  He  was  Professor  of  Natural  His- 
tory at  Harvard  from  1842  to  1888. 

Ochre  Point,  Xewport 199 

Jean    Baptiste    Donatien    de    Vimeure,    Comte    de 

KocHAMBEAU,  1725-1807 201 

Chevalier  de  Chastellux     ......     202 

'•Destruction     of    the    Schooner    '(Jaspe'    in    the 

Waters  of  Rhode  Island.  177-'"    ....     203 

This  engraving,  by  Rogers,  of  the  painiing  by  J.  McXevin, 
illustrates  one  of  the  picturesque  incidents,  preceding  the 
Revolution,  in  which  the  colonists  began  to  assert  their  inde- 
pendence. Narratives  survive  that  tell  how  a  man  went  round 
the  town  at  dusk  beating  a  drum  and  inviting  all  who  wished 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS  xix 

PAGE 

to  join  the  exijeditioii  to  meet  at  a  certain  house  that  evening; 
liow  the  men  were  divided  among  the  boats,  each  boat  witli 
its  leader ;  liow  they  rowed  with  muffled  oars  to  the  scliooner ; 
how  they  boarded  her  and  made  her  crew  i>risoners;  and 
how  they  burned  her  to  the  water's  edge. 

Samukl  Skwall 205 

Landing  of  Rogek  Williams 207 

From  an  old  steel  engraving. 

Rogek  Williams 209 

Statue  by  Franklin  Simmons,  at  Providence,  Rhode  Island. 
No  authentic  portrait  of  Roger  Williams  exists. 

Captain  Esek  Hopkins 211 

"Commandant  en  Chef  la  Flotte  Amcricaine."  From  a 
curious  contemporary  portrait  of  French  origin.  Portraits 
of  several  prominent  fighters  on  the  American  side  in  the 
Revolution  were  reproduced  in  France. 

George  Fox 216 

General  Nathanael  Greene        218 

Gilbert  Stuart 220 

From  the  portrait  by  Neagle,  in  the  Boston  Museum. 

Francis  Wayland 225 

At  the  age  of  sixty. 

Fort  Connanicut,  R.F 227 

From  an  old  engraving. 

Seal  of  Connecticut 228 

Captain  Wadswoutii  concealing  the   Charter   of 

Connecticut,  1687 229 

From  one  of  the  early  volumes  of  American  history. 

The  Charter  Oak 231 

From  an  engraving  of  the  painting  by  C.  D.  W.  Brownell, 
in  1855.    The  tree  was  destroyed  in  the  following  year. 

Oliver  Ellsworth 232 

Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 
Fnim  the  original  miniature  by  Trumbull,  in  the  possession 
of  Yale  College. 

Jonathan  Trumbuli 235 

Governor  of  Connectictit,  17r)9-178.S.  Said  to  have  been  the 
original  "Brother  Jonathan,"  that  having  been  Washing- 
ton's familiar  name  for  him. 


XX  LIST   OF   ILLUSTEATIONS 

PAGE 

Capture  of  Fort  Ticonderoga 237 

Ethan  Mien  summoning  the  commander  of  the  garrison  to 
surrender. 

View  of  Hartford  ...        ^        ...        .    239 

From  an  old  engraving. 

New  Haven,  from  Ferry  Hill 241 

Froiu  an  old  engraving. 

Yale  College  and  State  House  ....     243 

From  a  steel  engraving  made  early  in  the  last  century. 
Lyman  Beecher 246 

John  Pierpont 248 

From  an  engraving  by  H.  S.  Sadd,  of  the  daguerreotype  by 
Whipple. 

Bash  Bish  Falls 249 

This  recent  photograph  shows  the  lower  falls  of  Bash  Bish, 
but  not  the  cataract  above  it  nor  the  upper  falls.  The  falls 
are  about  100  yards  east  of  the  Massachusetts-New  York 
state  line. 

Destruction  of  the  Pequots 2.50 

"  The  savage  for  the  first  time  knew  who  his  master  was 
when  the  trainbands  stormed  the  palisades  at  Mystic." 

Dr.  Timothy  Davight 251 

A  "  Lath  "  in  Process  of  loading  with  Tobacco     .     255 
A  scene  typical  of  the  rich  tobacco  fields  in  the  Connecticut 
Valley.    The  tobacco  is  thus  transferred  to  the  barns,  where 
it  is  stored  in  the  same  position,  i.e.  upside  down,  to  dry. 

Settlers  of  Connecticut 259 

A  reproduction  of  one  of  those  queer  and  perhaps  crude 
illustrations  in  the  early  volumes  dealing  with  American 
history. 

The  Capitol  at  Hartford 260 

The  Death  of  Captain  Ferrer 261 

This  picture,  showing  the  slaves  on  the  Amistad  in  the  act 
of  overcoming  the  crew,  is  from  a  contemporary  engraving. 

Roger  Sherman  Baldwin,  1793-1863    ....     263 
Governor  of  Connecticut,  United  States  senator,  and  mem- 
ber of  the  "  Peace  Congress." 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS  xxi 

PAGE 

Charles  Goodyear 266 

John  Quincy  Adams         .        .        .        .        .        .        .     267 

From  the  painting  by  Edward  D.  jMarcliant,  1847,  in  the 
New  York  Historical  Society. 

Roger  Sherman 269 

General  Israel  Putnam 270 

"Major-general  of  the  Connecticut  forces  and  Commander- 
in-chief  at  the  Engagement  on  Buncker's  Hill,  near  Boston, 
17  June,  1775."  From  an  engraving,  published  in  London 
in  1775,  of  the  painting  by  Wilkinson. 

General  Putnam's  Feat  at  Horse  Neck  .         .        .     271 
Of  the  many  old  eng^a^ings  lecturing  the  incident,  this  is 
probably  the  truest  to  life,  as  well  as  to  the  locality  in  which 
it  took  place. 

Putnam's  Wolf  Den 272 

As  it  looks  at  the  present  day. 

John  Howard  Hale's  Glastoxbury  Orchards  .        .     273 
The  largest  i^each  orchards  north  of  West  Virginia  or  east 
of  the  Mississippi.     Annual  yield,  40,000  to  50,000  bushels. 

Map  of  Hlstohical  Places  in  Xew  York  State      .     278 

Landing  of  Hendrik  Hudson 279 

"View  of  the  Gre.a.t  Cohoes  Falls  on  the  Mohawk 

River  " ,        .         .        .        .282 

Lake  George 284 

The  Narrows,  with  Black  Mountain  and  Bolton,  and  the 
Hummock  in  the  foreground. 

Albany 287 

From  an  engraving  of  about  the  year  1840. 
The  Capitol  at  Albany 290 

Scene  from  the  Battle  of  Saratoga        .        .        .     291 
General  Arnold  wounded  in   the   attack  on  the  Hessian 
redoubt. 

Madam  Riedesel 293 

From  a  portrait  in  her  "  Memoirs." 


xxii  LIST   OF   ILLUSTEATIONS 

PAGE 

General  Burgoyxe 294 

From  a  copperplate  engraving  by  J.  Chapman,  published 
in  1«01. 

COXSCKIPTION    OF    GeRMAX    SoLDIEKS    FOR     SERVICE    IN 

America 295 

Burgoyne's  Army  on  the  Road  from  Lake  Cham- 
plain  TO  Fort  Edward 297 

Illustrating  how  the  retreating  American  force  destroyed 
bridges  and  felled  trees  in  the  way  of  the  advancing  British 
army. 

General  Grant's  Cottage  at  Mount  McGregor     .     298 

"  Ballston  Springs  " 299 

From  a  scarce  print,  showhig  the  town  in  its  fashionable 
days  (about  1835). 

View  of  Saratoga 300 

From  a  large  lithograph  printed  in  1848. 

DeWitt  Clinton 302 

From  the  bust  by  Durand. 

Route  of  the  Erie  Canal 304 

The  Mohawk  Valley 305 

From  "Picturesque  America." 

View  of  the  Erie  Canal  at  the  Little  Falls       .     307 
From  an  engraving  published  in  London  in  1831. 

The  Erie  Canal  at  Lockport 308 

From  an  early  engraving. 

Travelling  ry  Packet  Boat,  Erie  Canal         .        .     309 

Dr.  Eliphalet  Nott 312 

President  of  Union  College,  Schenectady,  180-1-1806. 

Red  Jacket,  Sagoyewatha,  1752-18.30  .        .        .     313 

From  the  painting  by  Robert  W.  Weir.  When  the  Seneca 
chief  sat  to  Weir  for  this  painting,  he  went  to  the  studio 
accompanied  by  his  interpreter  and  a  number  of  braves,  all 
of  Mhom  showed  uncommon  interest  in  the  progress  of  the 
work.  The  medal  Red  Jacket  wears  was  given  to  him  by 
Washington,  and  he  was  never  without  it,  even  when  clothed 
only  in  nature's  garb. 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


XXlll 


The  Murder  of  Miss  MuCrea 

She  was  killed  near  Fort  Edward,  New  York,  in  July, 
1777,  and  (it  is  said)  by  Indian  allies  of  Burgoyne. 

SCHEXECTADY,    FROM    THE    WeST 

This  engraving  is  of  particular  interest  on  account  of  the 
very  curious  old  bridge  which  it  shows. 

Glens  Falls      .... 

Salt  Manufacture  at  Syracuse  ... 

Views  illustrating  various  processes  of  a  very  old  industry 

"Storming  of  Stoney  Point" 

Niagara  Falls 

Fanny  Kemble .... 

Chautauqua  Lake  and  Point 


PAGE 

316 


317 

320 
322 

324 
329 
331 
334 


Falls  of  Genesee  River,  at  Rochester    .        .        .     336 
The  old  engraving  from  which  this  picture  is  taken  shows 
the  river  before  its  banks  were  lined  with  factories,  to  take 
advantage  of  the  water  power. 

Jacob  Gould  Schurman 338 

President  of  Cornell  since  1892.    From  a  recent  photograph. 

The  Mall,  Central  Park 339 

Inauguration  of  Washington 341 

Reproduced  from  a  painting  showing  the  following  persons, 
from  left  to  right:  Livingston,  St.  Clair,  Otis,  Knox,  Sher- 
man, "Washington,  Steuben,  and  Adams.  The  inauguration 
took  place  on  the  balcony  of  a  building  then  located  at  the 
corner  of  Wall  and  Nassau  Streets,  where  the  Sub-Treasury 
now  stands. 

CoNESTOGA  Wagon 344 

The  vehicle  in  which  was  made  the  early  emigration  to 
the  western  parts  of  New  York  State  and  to  what  is  now  the 
Middle  West.     The  forerunner  of  the  prairie  schooner. 


Ezra  Stiles        ...... 

Emigration  to  the  AVestekn  Country 


346 
347 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

President  Washington 350 

The  present  portrait,  one  of  several  painted  by  Stuart,  is 
l^erhaps  the  best  of  all  the  pictures  of  Washington.  It  repre- 
sents him  about  the  year  1794. 

Plan  of  the  City  of  AVashington       ....     .3.51 
This  plan,  which  has  since,  of  course,  been  greatly  ex- 
tended, is,  it  would  seem,  L'Enfant's  plan  as  modified  by 
Ellicott.     The  engraving  from  which  this  picture  is  taken 
was  published  in  London  in  1798. 

Ma.jor  Andrew  Ellicott,  1754-1820  ....  .355 
He  served  as  an  officer  in  the  Revolution,  and  throughout 
most  of  his  life  filled  important  positions  under  the  Federal 
and  State  Governments.  From  179(j  to  1801  he  served  as 
Commi.ssioner  in  settling  the  southern  boundary  of  the 
United  States.  Later,  he  taught  mathematics  and  engineer- 
ing at  West  Point. 

View  of  the  Potomac  and  the  Site   of  Washing- 
ton IN  1800 357 

From  an  old  engraving. 

View  of  Potomac  and  the  City  of  Washington     .     359 

This  engraving,  which  gives  the  view  from  Geisborough, 
apparently  dates  from  the  first  decade  of  the  last  century. 

Charles  Bulfinch 361 

Monument  at  the  Navy  Yard,  Washington     .        .     363 
Erected  in  1860,  in  commemoration  of  the  sailors  of  the 
Revolution  and  the  war  with  the  Barbary  Pirates. 

Back  View  of  the  Capitol,  Washington  .        .        .     365 
From  an  engraving  of  about  1810. 

Mount  Vernon  ....••••     367 

The  tomb  of  Washington.     From  an  old  steel  engraving. 

The  Capitol  at  AVashington 368 

View  from  the  northeast.  From  a  lithograph  published  in 
Washington  about  1830. 

The  President's  House,  AVashington  ....    370 
From  an  engraving  of  about  the  year  1832. 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS  xxv 

PAGE 

The  Department  of  State 371 

From  an  engraving,  of  French  or'gin,  dating  from  early  in 
the  last  century. 

Interior  of  the  House  of  Representatives     .         .     372 

From  an  engraving  published  in  London  in  1831. 

View  of  Washington  from  the  Capitol    .        .         .     374 

This  old  engraving  shows  a  view  of  Washington  in  1832, 
looking  from  the  Capitol  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue.  The 
city  probably  looked  very  much  like  this  about  the  time  of 
Dr.  Hale's  fir.st  visit. 

The  President's  House,  from  the  Potomac      .        .     376 

The  engraving  from  which  this  picture  is  made  was  pub- 
lished in  London  in  1839. 

Washington,  from  the  White  House         .        .        .     379 
This  view,  of  about  the  year  1840,  looks  from  the  rear 
balcony  of  the  White  House  along  Pennsylvania  Avenue 
toward  the  Capitol. 

Mrs.  Madison 381 

From  an  engraving  of  one  of  the  best  paintings  of  Mrs. 
Madison,  which  shows  her  as  she  looked  in  the  late  thirties. 

The  Smithsonian  Institute 382 

From  an  old  engraving. 

The  Capitol  at  Washington 384 

About  the  middle  of  the  last  century. 

The  House  of  Representatives 386 

About  the  middle  of  the  last  century. 

The  Navy  Yard,  Washington 388 

The  Grand  Review  at  Washington   ....    389 
General  Sherman's  army  passing  the  head  stand,  in  front 
of  the  White  House,  May  24,  1865.     From  a  contemporary 
lithograph. 

Bird's-eye  View  of  Washington  ....    393 

Shortly  after  the  close  of  the  Civil  War. 

Washington,  from  Arlington  Heights      .        .        .     396 

This  engraving,  of  the  year  1872,  shows  the  finished  Capitol 
and  the  unfinished  Washington  Monument. 


xxvi  LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Joseph  G.  Cannon 399 

Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives ;  and,  incidentally, 
the  most  powerful  man  in  Washington  except,  possibly,  the 
President. 

(THE  FOLLOWING  VIEWS  ARE  FROM  PRESENT-DAY 
WASHINGTON) 

CONNECTICX'T    AvENUE 401 

Present-day  view  of  the  Avenue  off  which  the  cows  were 
pastured  when  Dr.  Hale  first  went  to  Washington,  as  related 
in  the  previous  chapter. 

Upper   Connecticut   Avenue,   and   Corner   of   Oak 

Lawn 403 

The  Department  of  Agriculture       ....  406 

The  State.  War,  and  Navy  Departments        .        .  409 

The  Patent  Office 411 

The  White  House 414 

The  Post-office  Department 416 


TARRY   AT  HO.ME   TRAVELS 


TAERY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

CHAPTER  I 
INTRODUCTORY 

It  seems  to  me  curious  that  so  few  people 
write  about  travels  in  the  United  States.  One 
in  a  thousand  of  the  intelHgent  Americans  who 
travel  in  Europe  puts  his  observations  in  print. 
One  in  fifty  of  the  people  who  cross  Asia  does  the 
same;  and  every  one  who  crosses  Africa  does. 
But  of  the  travellers  of  America  you  might  count 
on  the  fingers  of  two  hands  all  who  have 
written  anything  worth  reading  that  has  been 
printed  in  the  last  twenty  years. 

Of  which  one  consequence  is  that  when  you 
talk  with  intelligent  Americans  you  fuid  that 
they  know  more  of  Switzerland  and  perhaps  of 
Moscow  or  of  Stonehenge  than  they  know  of 
Indianapolis,  or  of  Trenton  Falls,  or  of  Bona- 
venture,    or    Chimborazo.     You    can    go    to    an 


2  TARRY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

illustrated  lecture  and  come  home  and  feel  after- 
wards that  you  have  been  on  a  Norwegian  canal 
or  a  Portuguese  railway.  But  if  there  are  such 
shows  of  my  own  country,  I  am  not  favored. 
I  am  always  on  the  lookout  for  them,  but  I 
never  find  them. 

A  little  boy  who  was  a  friend  of  mine  was 
studying  arithmetic  at  school,  and  he  came  to 
the  process  known  by  the  schoolmasters  as  ''long 
division."  It  said  in  the  book,  ''Inquire  how 
many  times  the  Divisor  goes  into  the  Dividend." 
So  when  he  had  his  slate  adjusted  to  Divisor  and 
Dividend,  he  went  to  ask  his  teacher  how  far 
one  went  into  the  other.  She  remonstrated,  but 
he  said  that  that  was  what  the  book  said  —  it 
told  him  to  "inquire,"  and  he  "inquired." 

The  average  American  is  left  in  very  much 
the  condition  of  that  boy.  If  he  wants  to  know 
about  Vermont,  he  cannot  find  any  book  that 
tells  him.  Whoever  he  speaks  to  about  it  is 
annoyed  or  pretends  to  gape,  and  tells  him  to 
go  to  Vermont  and  see.  The  newspapers  are 
painfully  provincial.     It  is  hard  to  make  them 


INTRODUCTORY  3 

print  some  spirit(xl  letter  from  a  bright  friend 
who  is  travelhng  in  the  steps  of  Lewis  and  Clark, 
or  among  the  wonders  of  California.  Once  there 
were  such  books  as  Lewis  and  Clark's  or  Fre- 
mont's, or  Francis  Parkman's  or  Dwight's  ''Trav- 
els in  New  England,"  or  Flint's  ''Mississippi." 
But,  as  I  say,  we  do  not  find  such  books  now. 
One  recollects,  of  course,  "The  Wedding  Jour- 
ney" of  Howells,  and  "A  Chance  Acquaintance," 
and  other  such  fragments.  But  not  enough  of 
them.  I  sent  to  a  magazine  a  good  story  once, 
where  the  bride  and  her  husband  travelled  on  the 
Vanderbilt  lines.  I  had  to  strike  out  this  allu- 
sion lest  it  should  be  an  advertisement ! 

I  should  like  to  have  exactly  such  a  book 
about  the  United  States  as  an  English  doctor, 
whose  name  I  have  forgotten,  made  about  the 
continent  of  Europe  just  after  Napoleon  was 
sent  to  Elba.  English  people  had  been  shut  off 
from  the  continent  for  half  a  generation.  In 
fact,  unless  they  were  named  Arthur  Young, 
Addison,  or  Prior,  or  Sterne,  or  John  Milton, 
they  had  not  gone  there  much  before.     One  of 


4  TARRY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

the  charms  of  Jane  Austen's  novels  is  that  they 
are  exquisitely  insular.  A  post-captain  or  an 
admiral  may  be  alluded  to  because  Britannia 
rules  the  waves.  But  the  continent  of  Europe 
or  the  double  continent  of  America  is  referred 
to  no  more  than  the  Planet  Neptune,  of  which 
she  had  never  heard.  This  unknown  English 
doctor  sent  his  English  carriage  across  to  Calais, 
made  up  a  party  of  four,  took  his  life  in  his  hands, 
and  rode  to  Italy  and  back  again,  and  told  from 
day  to  day  just  what  he  had  seen.  It  is  grace- 
less of  me  to  forget  his  name,  for  he  wrote  a  very 
entertaining  book.  Dear  old  Dr.  Dwight,  the 
President  of  Yale  College,  started  from  New 
Haven,  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  jumbled  about 
the  New  England  states  and  wrote  an  account 
of  them  in  just  the  same  way.  Our  friend  Mr. 
Lummis  started  with  his  dog,  both  on  foot,  from 
ChiUicothe  in  Ohio  and  walked  to  Los  Angeles 
in  California.  The  dog  died,  but  Mr.  Lummis 
wrote  a  very  entertaining  book  about  the  jour- 
ney. But  Dr.  Dwight  is  in  heaven ;  I  suppose 
the   English  doctor  is,  for  if  he   were  alive,  he 


INTRODUCTORY  7 

must  be  one  hundred  and  thirteen  years  old ;  and 
Mr.  Lummis  is  too  busy  with  his  magazine  to  start 
agam.  So  I  am  writing  these  Hnes,  not  so  much 
for  what  they  tell  as  to  call  the  attention  of 
readers  to  what  they  do  not  tell.  Think  of  the 
great  voids  of  ignorance !  Think  how  little  you 
know  about  North  Dakota  or  Idaho ! 

Of  course  modern  science  answers  that  we 
should  travel  ourselves.  We  should  see  with 
our  own  eyes  and  hear  with  our  ears  and  under- 
stand with  our  hearts  the  wonderful  things 
which  are  in  our  own  country,  and  then  should 
turn  round  and  tell  them  to  others.    As  Tasso  says, 

When  I  am  left  to  tell  in  other's  ear 

The  wonders  seen,  and  whisper,  "  I  was  there." 

But  in  face  of  this  scientific  course  there  are 
difficulties.  One,  it  costs  so  much  to  travel  in 
America.  I  can  go  about  anywhere  in  Spain  or 
Switzerland,  and  at  the  end  of  the  week  I  only 
have  to  draw  for  twenty-five  dollars  from  my 
banker.  But  in  America,  wherever  I  go,  the 
railways  make  me  pay  so  much,  and  the  hotels 


8  TARRY   AT   HOME  TRAVELS 

make  me  pay  so  much,  and  the  steamboats, 
that  just  as  I  am  ready  for  my  grand  tour  in 
America,  some  one  says  to  me,  ''Take  a  second- 
class  ticket  with  me  for  Hamburg;"  and  I  do, 
and  we  travel  in  Bohemia  instead  of  going  to 
Tacoma.  It  is  only  by  pretending  to  be  a  school- 
master and  taking  a  half-price  ticket  to  attend 
an  ''Educational  Convention"  —  as  if  there  were 
any  such  word  as  "educational,"  and  as  if  there 
were  much  use  in  a  convention  —  it  is  only  thus 
that  I  can  go  to  see  Bunker  Hill,  if  I  happen  to 
live  in  the  North  Park.  All  of  which  we  will 
hope  the  future  will  reform  for  us. 

Having  said  this,  I  will  try  to  start  the  intelli- 
gent reader  on  his  own  feet;  and  we  will  give 
him  some  hint  of  what  he  ought  to  see,  and  I  will 
not  pretend  to  show  it  to  him.  He  shall  have 
some  other  hint  of  what  he  ought  to  hear,  but 
I  will  not  pretend  to  speak  it.  Some  of  the  best 
essays  about  this  world  which  have  been  written 
are  the  prefaces  to  Murray's  and  Baedeker's 
Guide  Books.  They  do  not  tell  the  traveller 
what  he  is  to  see.     That  comes  afterwards  in  the 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

book.  But  they  try  to  quicken  his  enthusiasm, 
to  make  him  see  that  travel  is  worth  while,  and 
to   understand  that   it  is  neither  so   dangerous 


Lord  Ashburton'. 

From  a  mezzotint  by  Wagstaff,  after  the  painting 

by  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence. 

nor  so  difficult  as  he  supposes.  I  will  try  here, 
mostly  by  memories,  sometimes  by  expectations, 
with  an  occasional  word  of  the  present  fact,  to 


10  TAKRY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

interest  the  average  reader  in  some  plan  for  see- 
ing some  part  of  his  own  home,  which  he  has  never 
seen  until  now. 

There  are  two  notable  studies  of  New  England 
which  you  had  better  read  right  through  before 
you  make  your  plans  for  next  June.  They  are 
in  the  first  volume  and  the  second  of  Dr.  Palfrey's 
''History  of  New  England.'"  They  not  only  tell 
what  he  knew,  wliich  was  a  great  deal,  but  they 
give  you  almost  all  the  references  which  you  need 
if  you  have  the  genuine  historical  passion.  The 
average  American  has  no  such  passion.  He  does 
not  care  anything  about  history.  This  is  indeed 
the  proverb  of  the  hustling  editor  of.  to-day  — 
that  even  newspapers  have  nothing  to  do  with 
history.  One  of  them,  with  pathetic  blindness, 
quoted  from  Jules  Verne  the  remark  that  you 
got  no  history  out  of  the  newspaper,  really 
thinking  that  Jules  Verne  intended  this  for  a 
compliment.  But  there  are  occasional  people 
who  are  curious  to  know  where  the  plant  of 
Indian  corn  came  from,  and  what  sort  of  a  seed 
it  had ;  where  the  pine  tree  came  from,  and  what 


INTRODUCTORY  11 

sort  of  a  seed  it  had.  And  that  sort  of  people 
Hke  to  know  what  the  Thirteen  States  were,  and 
how  they  are  different  from  the  thirty-two 
others ;  what  a  New  England  forest  was,  and  how 
it  differs  from  the  New  England  of  factories  and 
high  schools;  who  Massasoit  or  Ganonicus  were, 
and  how  they  differed  from  Charles  William  Eliot 
and  John  Davis  Long.  These  people  are  the 
people  who  care  for  history,  and  they  will  be  glad 
of  such  references  as  Dr.  Palfrey  gives  them ; 
and  they  will  be  glad  to  read  the  chapters  of  which 
I  have  spoken;  and  in  very  rare  cases  they  will 
go  to  the  American  Antiquarian  Library  or  the 
John  Carter  Brown  collection  of  books  in  Provi- 
dence, or  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society's 
Library,  or  to  that  of  Harvard  College,  or  to  the 
Howard  Library  in  New  Orleans  to  see  for  them- 
selves the  original  authorities. 

For  our  present  purpose  it  must  be  enough  to 
say  that  New  England  is  a  peninsula  included 
within  an  oblong  which,  if  roughly  drawn,  meas- 
ures eight  degrees  of  latitude  and  nine  of  longi- 
tude —  a  little  more  accurately,   perhaps,  sixty 


12 


TARRY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 


or  eighty  thousand  square  miles,  be  the  same  more 
or  less.  Dear  Dr.  Palfrey  says  with  a  certain 
pride  that  it  is  just    halfway  from  the  Equator 


Daniel  Webster. 
From  an  engraving  by  H.  Wright  Smith,  after  the  painting  by  J.  Ames. 


to  the  Pole,  and  this  is  interesting,  for  it  gives 
some  slight  scientific  authority  to  Dr.  Holmes's 
claim  that  the  gilded  dome  of  the  Boston  State 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

House  is  the  ''Hub  of  the  Universe."  Indeed, 
it  would  amuse  the  first  class  in  the  ninth  grade 
of  some  grammar  school  to  see  how  nearly  that 
same  gilded  dome  is  at  the  centre  of  inhabited 
New  England.  Possibly  some  advanced  student 
in  that  class  may  find  out,  what  is  unknown  to 
all  the  readers  of  these  lines,  why  the  accomplished 
architect  Charles  Bulfinch  put  a  pineapple  on  top 
of  the  dome. 

Some  of  the  old  writers  really  thought  that  New 
England  was  an  island.  What  they  knew  was 
that  Henry  Hudson  had  worked  his  way  in  the 
Half  Moon  up  from  the  ocean  on  the  south  as 
far  as  Albany;  that  Champlain  had  come  by 
water  from  the  ocean  on  the  north  as  far  as  Lake 
Champlain ;  that  between  Albany  and  the  head 
of  Lake  George  there  is  not  a  wide  distance.  In 
point  of  fact,  I  believe  the  neck  of  land  between 
the  waters  which  flow  into  the  St.  Lawrence 
and  the  waters  which  flow  into  the  Hudson  is  not 
more  than  two  miles  across.  If  anybody  cares, 
it  was  within  twenty  miles  of  this  neck  that 
Burgoyne  received  his  coup  de  grace,  and  that 


14  TARRY   AT   HOIME   TRAVELS 

the  history  of  modem  civihzation  changed  when, 
in  his  capitulation,  the  independence  of  the  United 
States  was  made  sure. 

I  was  once  at  an  evening  party,  talking  with 


John  a.  Andrew. 
War  Governor  of  Massachusetts. 


one  of  the  great  New  Englanders,  John  Albion 
Andrew,  w^hen  Louis  Agassiz  joined  us.  I  said, 
''Agassiz,  I  wish  you  would  tell  Andrew  what  I 
am  telling  him ;  you  would  do  it  so  much  l^etter 
than  I."     Naturally,  he  asked  me  what  I  was 


INTKODUCTORY  15 

telling  him.  Now,  it  was  at  the  time  of  one  of 
our  prehistoric  quarrels  with  England,  when  the 
understanding  between  the  two  countries  was  not 
as  cordial  as  it  is  now.  England  and  the  United 
States  were  quarrelling  about  54-40,  or  codfish, 
or  something  —  I  have  forgotten  what.  I  said, 
''I  am  telling  Andrew  how  you  told  us  that  when 
the  Lord  God  thought  he  would  make  a  world  out 
of  a  spinning  ball  of  red-hot  water  and  steam 
which  there  was,  he  made  some  rocks  rise  up 
as  a  sort  of  nucleus  of  the  man-habitable  world, 
and  that  the  first  thing  he  thought  of  was  to 
make  the  ridge  between  the  United  States  and 
Canada." 

Agassiz  laughed,  and  said  that  he  had  not  put 
it  in  exactly  that  way,  but  that  that  was  the  truth. 
And  whoever  reads  the  old  treaty  of  1783  will  be 
edified  in  finding  that  'Hhe  highlands  between 
the  waters  flowing  into  the  St.  Lawrence"  and 
the  waters  flowing  into  the  Atlantic  were  named 
by  those  ungeological  diplomatists  who  made  the 
treaty,  as  the  northern  boundary  of  New  England. 
That  critical  ridge  of  rock  which  poked  its  head 


16  TARRY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

up  on  that  fine  morning  described  in  the  ninth 
verse  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  may  still  be 
traced  by  the  amateur  fisherman  who  has  gone 
up  to  the  narrow  trout  brook  at  the  head  of  the 
Connecticut.  It  is  the  same  rock  which  you  pass 
on  the  Vanderbilt  road,  just  north  of  the  Mohawk, 
at  Little  Falls  and  along  in  such  places,  if  you  are 
on  Howells's  ^'Wedding  Journey"  or  on  Lucy 
Poor's. 

Lord  Ashburton  and  Mr.  Webster  agreed  for 
the  northeastern  part  of  the  country  to  make 
an  artificial  line.  But  you  and  I,  for  the  conven- 
ience of  things,  may  recollect  that  all  of  us  New 
Englanders  probably  live  above  the  oldest  land 
in  the  world.  That  is  the  reason  of  a  certain 
arrogance  which  other  people  accuse  us  of.  But, 
really,  we  have  not  much  to  do  with  that  steam- 
ing rock  of  a  hundred  million  aeons  ago,  for  all 
New  England  was  made  over  again,  it  seems, 
when  the  glaciers  came  down  from  the  north, 
covering  us  all  over  with  a  sheet  of  ice  which 
was  a  thousand  feet  thick,  or  more,  even  over 
the  top  of  our  Mount  Washington.     It  drifted 


uuTLiNK  Map  of  Maine. 
17 


TNTRODUf^TORY  19 

south  and  south  and  south,  until  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  proved  to  be  too  warm  for  it.  It  left  its 
gravel  and  sand  and  smaller  boulders  first  in  a 
ridge  which  became  Long  Island,  Block  Island, 
and  Nantucket,  and,  after  years  more,  it  made 
another  ridge  which  is  now  southern  Connecti- 
cut and  southern  Rhode  Island  and  Cape  Cod, 
I  suppose,  hicluding,  among  other  excellent  places, 
my  own  summer  home.  And,  still  again,  it  made 
a  third  ridge,  five  or  ten  miles  inland  from  the 
Long  Island  Sound  of  to-day.  Recollect  this, 
my  sophomore  friend,  when  walking  through 
New  England  with  your  nightgown  and  tooth- 
brush in  a  knapsack.  Recollect  this.  Madam 
Champernoon,  as  your  chauffeur  takes  you  along 
the  Connecticut  Valley  at  a  rate  not  exceeding 
fifteen  miles  an  hour,  as  required  b}^  the  statute, 
in  those  last  happy  moments  before  the  boiler 
explodes  and  you  and  he  leave  the  study  of  ter- 
restrial geology. 

Of  this  territory,  of  which  we  have  established 
the  age  in  such  satisfactory  and  substantial 
fashion,  the  state  of    Maine  makes  nearlv  one- 


20 


TARRY   AT    HOME    TRAVELS 


half  —  thirty-three  thousand  square  miles.  The 
people  of  Maine  call  it  the  "State  of  Maine/' 
with  a  certain  pride  and  frequency  not  observable 
in  other  states.     You  say  Delaware  did  this  or 


Mount   Katahdin. 

Ohio  did  that,  when  a  Maine  man  is  a  little  apt 
to  say,  ''the  State  of  Maine"  did  this  and  the 
''State  of  Maine"  did  that.  This  is  because 
from  near  the  beginning  until  1820  it  was  the 
District,   or  vernacular  "Deestrict,"    of  Maine. 


INTRODUCTORY  21 

Under  the  passage  of  what  is  known  as  the 
Missouri  Compromise  Act  in  our  pohtics,  it  was 
set  apart  as  a  state.  And  the  older  people 
still  remember  with  pride  that  it  is  no  longer  the 
"Deestrict,"  but  it  is  the  state  of  Maine  —  a 
pride  which  asserts  itself  even  when  they  are 
unconscious  of  what  they  are  saying, 

Maine  and  Vermont  are  virtually  the  youngest 
of  the  New  England  states.  This  is  because  in 
practice  in  the  beginning  people  did  not  like  to  go 
into  wildernesses  to  settle  them,  although  they 
knew  very  well  what  happy  homes  they  would 
make.  They  did  not  like  to,  while  there  was 
any  fear  of  French  attack  upon  the  north.  The 
French  always  brought  Indians  with  them.  And 
you  may  charge  it  to  the  French  religion  or  not 
as  you  choose,  but  the  savage  warfare  which  they 
carried  on  under  French  direction  was  of  the  most 
horrible  kind.  If  anybody  cares,  it  is  to  be  ol> 
served  that  the  hatred  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  which  existed  formerly  in  New  England 
was  due  to  the  memory  that  the  savage  raids 
of  the  eighteenth  century  were  in  all  instances 


22 


TARRY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 


mixed  up  with  French  invasion,  and  were  ascribed 
by  the  sufferers  to  the  machinations  of  Latin 
priests.  But  with  General  Wolfe  at  Quebec  in 
1759  such  French  domination  practically  ended  — 
no  more  terror  of  savage  warfare.  And  then 
New    Hampshire    people    were    glad    enough    to 

leave  their 
gravel  and  rock 
for  the  fer- 
tile valleys  of 
Vermont,  and 
the  Massachu- 
setts people 
glad  enough  to 
send  their  emi- 
grants up  into 
the  valleys  of 
the  Kennebec 
and  Penobscot. 
Before  that  time  Maine  was  simply  a  fringe  of 
seaboard  towns. 

My  father  was  [i  born  geographer,  and  before 
he  died    he  found,  rather  to  his  own  surprise,  I 


Nathan  Hale. 
From  an  old  engraving. 


INTRODUCTORY^  23 

think,  that  he  was  a  great  engineer.  I  am  apt 
to  think  tliat  I  and  my  children  inherit  from  him 
certain  tastes  and  habits  which  our  nearest 
friends  sometimes  venture  to  call  Bohemian. 

What  I  know  is  that  I  was  born  in  the  month 
of  April,  1822,  and  that  before  I  was  four  months 
old  he  had  taken  us  all  to  Dover,  New  Hamp- 
shire, to  be  noted  here  as  the  oldest  town  in 
that  state.  There  he  left  my  mother  and  her 
four  httk>  chikh'cn  in  the  countiy  tavern  of 
the  day  while  he  and  the  great  botanist.  Dr. 
Jacob  Bigelow,  and  two  or  three  friends  of  theirs 
went  on  horseback  through  the  Xot(  h  of  the  White 
Mountains.  Their  account  of  this  expedition  con- 
tains, I  think,  the  first  scientific  narratives  re- 
garding those  mountains.  They  were  published 
at  the  time  in  a  tract,  now  rare,  which  has  an 
interest  for  us  Appalachians. 

This  expedition  was  the  first  l;)it  of  travel 
which  ever  took  me  outside  of  Massachusetts. 
I  do  not  affect  to  remember  the  New  Hampshire 
of  that  time,  ])ut  I  like  to  record  this  adventure. 
A  charming   cousin   of   mine,   one   of  the   finest 


24  TAREY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

women  of  the  century,  used  to  tell  me  with  amuse- 
ment that  she  had  made  my  acquaintance  there 
and  then,  while  I  still  wore  the  simpler  garments 
of  babyhood.  Let  this  be  the  prelude  to  these 
memories  of  my  own  dealings  afterwards  with 
the  different  states  of  New  England. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  STATE   OF   MAINE 

First  of  Maine.  "Dirigo,  I  lead/'  is  the  fine 
motto  of  tliat  state.  Its  people  have  no  reason 
to  be  ashamed  of  it  or  to  blush  because  their 
fathers  chose  it.  It  means,  if  you  are  modest, 
that  Maine  begins  the  list  of  the  United  States, 
because  in  those  days  men  began  at  the  north 
and  repeated  the  list  from  north  to  south.  So 
it  was  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont.  In 
these  clays  the  Pacific  state  of  Washington  runs 
farther  north,  to  the  parallel  of  49.  But  in  the 
days  of  the  district  of  Maine  no  state  ran  so 
near  the  North  Pole  as  she  did.  So  Maine  does 
lead  for  every  schoolboy  and  every  schoolgirl 
of  America. 

If,  again,  anybody  cares,  one  of  Samuel  Hale's 
grandsons  moved  out  into  eastern  Maine,  while 
one  of  his  sons  moved  into  Connecticut.     The  son 

25 


26  TARRY   AT    HOME   TRAVELS 

of  this  Connecticut  num  was  my  grandfather. 
And  he  was  cousin,  if  you  please,  of  the  grand- 
father of  those  men  from  Maine  who  now  find 
their  companions  in  Senates  and  stand  unawed 
before  kings.  But  I  chd  not  know  that  when  I 
first  went  there.  I  beheve  I  only  mention  it  now 
to  say  that  the  Hales  of  Maine  are  our  sort  of 
Hales ;  the  Hales  of  New  Hampshire  are  of  the 
sort  of  the  distinguished  lady  I  have  spoken  of, 
and  are  also  of  our  kind  of  Hales,  "the  Hales 
who  do  not  have  sugar  in  their  coffee."  The 
Hales  of  Vermont  are  of  the  Newbury  Hales, 
which  means  Thomas  the  Glover,  They  also  are 
admirable  people,  and  they  have  a  Nathan  Hale 
of  their  own  who  was  a  Captain  Nathan  Hale  of 
the  Revolution,  and  died  a  prisoner  of  war  near 
New  York  and  shall  be  spoken  of  hereafter. 
My  son  Philip  is  an  artist.  He  was  in  a  New 
York  gallery  one  day  when  it  was  what  the  artists 
call  ''varnishing  day,"  and  a  lady,  referring  to 
his  picture,  said,  ''So  you  have  come  to  New 
York  to  be  hanged,  Mr,  Hale."  "Yes,"  said  he; 
"that  is  the  way  the  Hales  usually  come." 


THE   STATE   OF   MAINE 


27 


Perhaps  it  is  as  well  to  say  that  the  Massa- 
chusetts Hales  are  some  of  them  of  one  kind  and 
some  of  another,  and  yet  a  third  belong  to  the 


Samuel  Longfellow. 


Rehoboth  Hales.  The  Rhode  Island  Hales  are 
mostly  Rehoboth  Hales.  Besides  the  Coventry 
Hales  in  Connecticut,  of  whom  I  am,  and  the 
Ashford   Hales,    who   are   our   cousins,    are   the 


28  TARRY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

Glastonbury  Hales.  They  are  the  people  who  now 
produce  peaches  for  the  world,  and  are  our  cousins 
on  another  line  from  the  Ashford  Hales. 

It  is  my  belief  that  in  all  these  lines  the  Hales 
were  cousins  of  each  other.  Generally  speaking, 
they  are  tall,  with  a  tendency  to  black  hair. 
Without  exception  they  love  their  country  and 
tell  the  truth.  So  much  for  genealogy,  to  which 
I  may  never  refer,  perhaps,  again. 

No,  I  did  not  go  to  Maine  to  see  my  cousins. 
I  went  there  on  my  way  to  New  Hampshire  to 
see,  if  you  please,  on  those  mountains  the  geo- 
logical order  of  its  stratification.  In  the  year  1841 
I  was  appointed  as  a  junior  member  on  the  New 
Hampshire  Geological  Survey,  under  the  emi- 
nent Charles  Thomas  Jackson,  who  is  better 
known  as  one  of  the  discoverers  of  the  properties 
of  ether.  On  my  way  to  join  this  survey  I  went 
down  to  Portland  and  made  a  visit  on  my  life- 
long friend  Samuel  Longfellow.  He  is  the  Long- 
fellow to  whom  you  owe  some  of  the  best  hymns 
in  your  hymn-book;  for  instance,  he  wrote  the 
hymn  for  my  ordination.     He  graduated  with  me 


THE   STATE   OF   MAINE 


29 


at  Cambridge  in  1839.  And  we  of  our  class  used 
to  call  the  celebrated  Henry  Wadsworth  Long- 
fellow  the 
brother  of  the 
''Poet  Long- 
fellow," mean- 
ing that  he  was 
brother  to  our 
Sam. 

This  narra- 
tive should 
really  begin 
with  a  voyage 
down  Portland 
Harbor     in    a 

Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow. 

boat  piloted 

by  Sam  Longfellow  and  me.  He  and  I  and 
Channing,  who  had  asked  for  my  appointment 
on  the  New  Hampshire  Survey,  were  intimate 
in  college. 

From  college  days  down  I  liked  Channing  and 
Channing  liked  me.  In  November,  1838,  he  pro- 
posed   that    we    should    watch    from    midnight 


30  TARRY   AT    HOME   TRAVELS 

onward  for  the  annual  recurrence  of  the  meteoric 
shower  which  is  now  generally  called  the  shower 
of  the  Leonids.  And  we  did  so,  eight  of  us  of 
the  college  class  of  1839,  on  the  Delta  of  those 
days.     What  says  the  poem  of  that  day  ? 

Our  Chase  and  our  Channing 
The  Northwest  are  scanning, 
While  the  cold  wind  is  fanning 

Their  faces  upturned, 
While  our  Hurd  and  our  Hale, 
With  watching  turned  pale. 
Are  looking  toward  Yale 

Where  all  these  things  burned. 
And  Morison  and  Parker 
Cry  out  to  the  marker, 
"  One  jet  black  and  darker 

From  zenith  above." 
While  Adams  and  Longfellow, 
Watching  the  throng  below. 
Won't  all  night  long  allow 

Black  meteors  move. 

All  the  rest  of  us  insisted  that  there  were  black 
meteors  as  well  as  white  ones.  This  opinion 
has   been    confirmed  since   then.     Our   observa- 


THE   STATE   OF   MAINE  31 

tory  was  a  square  table,  just  where  the  statue 
of  John  Harvard  sits  in  bronze  to-day.     North, 


JUDGK    StEPHKN    LoNliFELLOW. 

Father  of  Henry  Wadsworth  and  Samuel  Longfellow. 
From  a  painting. 

south,  east,  and  west  of  the  table  were  four 
chairs,  facing  in  those  directions,  and  in  them 
sat  four  of  the  club.     A  fifth,  with  a  lantern  on 


32  TARRY   AT    HOME   TRAVELS 

the  table,  recorded  the  observations.  If  any  one 
wants  to  see  them,  he  can  look  in  Silliman's 
Journal  of  the  next  January,  or  in  the  Bulletins 
of  the  Astronomical  Department  of  the  French 
Academy  of  Sciences.  That  was  my  first  appear- 
ance on  that  august  record.  The  little  club  of 
observers  called  itself  the  Octagon  Club.  Chase 
afterwards  won  distinction  as  a  mathematician. 
Morison  was  Provost  of  the  Peabody  Library  at 
Baltimore,  Adams  distinguished  himself  as  a 
lawyer  before  his  early  death,  Longfellow  was  the 
preacher  and  hymn-writer,  and  Parker  and  Hurd 
every  man's  friends.  We  have  never  printed  till 
now  their  "Octagonal  Scribblings." 

And  so  in  1841  Channing  came  into  my  school- 
room one  day  and  asked  me  to  join  him  as  a 
subaltern  in  the  Geological  Survey  of  New 
Hampshire,  under  Jackson.  And,  so  I  did.  If 
this  series  ever  passes  Maine,  and  the  reader  and  I 
should  get  into  New  Hampshire  together,  I  will 
tell  of  those  experiences.  But  now,  as  I  have 
said,  Maine  is  the  first  on  the  list,  and  with  Maine 
we  will  begin. 


THE   STATE   OF   MAl^N^E  33 

To  start  on  this  expedition  I  went  to  Portland. 
Then  with  Longfellow  I  crossed  the  southwest 
corner  of  Maine,  that  I  might  join  Channing.  In 
the  expedition  which  followed  we  ascended 
Mount  Washington,  as  this  reader  shall  hear  when 
we  come  to  New  Hampshire.  So,  naturally 
enough,  four  years  after,  he  proposed  to  me  that 
we  should  try  the  highest  mountain  in  Maine  and 
ascend  ]\Iount  Katahdin.  Before  the  reader  is 
twenty  years  older  the  ascent  of  Katahdin  and 
the  exploration  of  the  Maine  lakes  will  l^e  among 
the  most  interesting  incidents  of  familiar  summer 
travel  in  America. 

But  of  Maine  I  knew  nothing  but  the  Sebago 
Lake  and  the  Fryeburg  road  till  I  went  there 
with  this  same  William  Francis  Channing  for  this 
Katahdin  expedition,  as  my  father  had  gone  to 
New  Hampshire  to  ascend  ]\Iount  Washington. 

I  am  writing  soon  after  Channing's  death,  and 
I  am  tempted  to  say  that  while  he  is  remembered 
as  a  distinguished  electrician,  it  is  a  wonder  to 
some  of  us  that  he  never  became  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  men  of  his  time.     He  was  what  is 


34  TARRY   AT    HOME   TRAVELS 

now  called  a  physicist  of  remarkable  resources. 
He  had  studied  with  Dr.  Robert  Hare,  who  is  still 
remembered  among  the  fathers  of  science  in 
America,  the  inventor  of  the  oxyhydrogen  blow- 
pipe. Channing  had  early  taken  up  the  business 
of  harnessing  electricity.  He  is  the  author  of 
the  fire  alarm,  now  in  use  in  all  our  cities. 

A  wizard  of  such  dreaded  fame, 
That  when,  in  Salamanca's  cave, 
Him  listed  his  magic  wand  to  wav3, 

The  bells  would  ring  in  Notre  Dame. 

Indeed,  in  many  lines  his  early  experiments  in 
electricity  led  the  way  for  those  who  have  given 
to  us  the  electrical  inventions  of  to-day.  I  count 
it  as  a  great  misfortune  for  him  that  as  a  little 
boy  he  was  taken  to  Europe  to  school.  But 
Fellenberg  was  a  great  apostle  of  education  then ; 
his  school  at  Hofwyl,  now  forgotten,  was  the 
Mecca  of  educators.  For  those  were  the  days 
when  even  sensible  people  really  thought  that 
people  could  be  instructed  into  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,  or  practically  that  if  you  knew  your 


S    o 


35 


THE   STATE   OF   MAINE  37 

multiplication  table  well  enough,  all  else  would 
follow. 

Poor  little  Will  Channing,  in  those  early  ex- 
periences at  Hofwyl,  lost  in  childhood  the  joy  and 
delight,  so  necessary  to  the  children  of  God,  of 
easy  intercourse  with  his  fellow-men.  There 
was  always  a  certain  aloofness  about  him  which 
made  him  unhappy.  It  is  not  nice  to  be  on  the 
outside  margin  of  any  circle  of  mankind.  Here 
is,  for  better,  for  worse,  my  explanation  of  the 
reason  why  his  name  does  not  stand  higher  than 
it  does  among  the  men  of  his  generation. 

I  think  he  and  I  were  the  first  persons  who  had 
ascended  Mount  Katahdin  with  scientific  tastes 
and  for  any  scientific  purpose.  My  dear  friend 
Professor  Asa  Gray  had  told  me  that  it  was  de- 
sirable to  have  specimens  of  the  Alpine  vegeta- 
tion there,  that  it  might  be  compared  with  that 
of  Mount  Washington.  I  was  able  to  send  liim 
more  than  twenty  varieties  on  my  return. 

We  consulted  with  Dr.  Jackson,  who  had  been 
our  old  chief  in  New  Hampshire,  and  Dr.  Jackson 
had  said,  in  his  offhand  way,  that,  passing  across 


38  TARRY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

Maine  from  the  coal  of  Nova  Scotia  and  the 
limestone  of  Thomaston,  we  should  come  to  primi- 
tive rock  in  Mount  Katahdin,  and  that  the 
eastern  half  of  the  state  of  Maine  thus  presented 
in  very  short  distances  specimens  of  all  the  strati- 
fications of  the  earth's  surface  from  the  oldest 
time  to  our  own.  The  remark  has  not  much 
scientific  interest,  but  I  have  always  treasured  it 
as  a  very  good  aid  to  memory  as  to  what  Maine 
is.  You  can  see  the  beaver  build  his  hut  at  the 
north  end  of  Maine,  and  the  next  day  you  can  see 
the  Fine  Arts  Department  of  Bowdoin  College, 
which  is  as  good  a  type  of  the  best  modern  life 
as  you  could  choose.  So  you  can  pass  from 
primitive  rock  to  the  latest  Tertiary. 

Dr.  W.  0.  Crosby,  who  knows  much  more  about 
the  matter  than  Dr.  Jackson  ever  pretended  to 
know,  says  to  me,  ''Between  Nova  Scotia  or 
Thomaston  and  Mount  Katahdin  we  have  forma- 
tions covering  a  wide  range  of  geological  time 
and  including  some  of  the  oldest  as  well  as  the 
very  newest." 

If  any  one  is  curious  about  Katahdin,  I  refer 


-    5 


■r-      3" 


39 


THE   STATE   OF   MAINE  41 

him  to  the  magazme  Appalachia  of  April,  1901, 
where  I  have  printed  my  journal  of  the  time 
of  that  ascent.  I  have  said  thus  much  of  it  by 
way  of  inducing  readers  to  make  this  excursion. 

Very  simply,  the  heart  of  Maine  is  "the  Lake 
Country"  of  the  eastern  United  States,  precisely 
as  Minnesota  is  "the  Lake  Country"  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  and  as  we  talk  of  the  Lake 
Country  of  England  when  we  go  to  Windermere. 
No  man  knows  Nev/  England  as  seen  by  his  own 
eye  who  has  not  sat  on  the  higher  summits  of 
Katahdin.  In  Thoreau's  books  there  will  be 
found  an  account  of  his  ascent.  And,  not  to 
occupy  more  space  here,  I  like  to  say  that  the 
adventure  which  shall  take  any  man  up  the  Ken- 
nebec by  such  of  its  head  waters  as  come  from 
the  north,  so  that  he  thus  may  strike  the  route 
of  Arnold's  detachment  of  1775,  makes  a  very 
interesting  journey.  When  Mr.  Jared  Sparks 
made  that  journey  in  his  varied  historical  research, 
they  told  him  that  no  traveller  had  gone  through 
that  way  since  Arnold's  men  passed  by.  Or  if 
you  will  go  up  to  Ploulton,  which  was  a  military 


42  TARRY   AT    HOME    TRAVELS 

post  ill  the  early  part  of  the  hist  century,  you  will 
now  find  a  beautiful  modern  city  with  the  best 
appliances.  Indeed,  Aroostook  County,  of  which 
Houlton  is  the  shire  town,  is  so  prosperous  a  region 
that  they  told  me  when  I  was  last  there  that  there 
was  not  an  empty  house  in  the  county.  I  know 
I  found  schools  with  the  very  latest  advantages 
both  in  Houlton  and  Fort  Fairfield.  And  yet, 
as  I  said  just  now,  beavers  are  building  their  dams 
in  the  wilderness  there. 

The  Webster-Ashburton  Treaty  of  the  year 
1842  settled  the  old  boundary  controversy  between 
this  country  and  England,  which  had  existed  for 
nearly  sixty  years.  Mr.  Webster  and  Lord 
Ashburton  were  the  negotiators,  but  as  the  terri- 
tory in  question  belonged  wholly  to  the  states 
of  Maine  and  Massachusetts,  Mr.  Webster  had 
present  at  Washington  four  commissioners  from 
Maine,  three  from  Massachusetts,  and  also  my 
father,  Nathan  Hale,  as  his  personal  friend, 
because  my  father  had  given  special  attention  to 
the  boundary  question.  There  were  thus  ten 
persons  in  all  who  discussed  the  subject  together. 


THE   STATE   OF   ]\rAINE  43 

When  it  was  all  over,  Lord  Ashburton  told  my 
father  that  of  the  ten,  he,  the  English  delegate, 
was    the   onlv  one  who   had   ever   been   in    the 


V 

■^B 

^^Hp 

-0%  n^^^^l 

jH 

^^^^^^^^^HE/^>7^ 

^^^^^^^^^Bci 

JaMKS     liiiWDOIN. 

After  the  painting  by  Gilbert  Stuart  in  the  Walker  Art  Building, 
Bowdoin  College. 

territory  surrendered.  When  he  was  Mr.  Baring, 
he  crossed  it  on  a  jovn*ney  between  Quebec  and 
Halifax.     The  route  of  the  New  Brunswick  and 


44  TARRY  AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

Canada  Railway  now  passes  from  the  southeast 
to  the  northwest  through  the  territory  which  we 
conceded  to  England. 

Half-fashionable  America  knows  now  how  in- 
teresting is  the  region  where  New  England  was 
first  settled  by  the  French  in  1602.  For  there  is 
no  better  central  point  from  which  to  explore 
that  region  than  Bar  Harbor.  And  Bar  Harbor  is 
very  near  Dr.  Palfrey's  sacred  parallel  of  forty-five 
degrees'north.  Eastport  has  some  curious  history 
relating  to  the  long  period  when  it  was  under 
English  government  in  the  War  of  1812.  It  is 
the  only  proper  American  city  which  has  ever 
been  for  a  long  time  in  the  military  possession 
of  a  foreign  power. 

But  this  paper  is  not  written  as  if  it  were  a 
guide  book.  It  is  rather  as  if  I  met  you,  Gentle 
Reader,  in  a  palace  car  as  you  and  Mrs.  Reader 
and  the  children  were  speeding  eastward  from  the 
heats  of  Baltimore  and  Philadelphia,  and  had 
made  up  your  mind  to  go  as  far  as  you  could 
under  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  I  hope  I  should  not 
lay  out  a  route  for  you.     I  am  trying  to  tell  you 


THE   STATE   OF   MAINE  45 

what  are  your  opportunities  in  a  state  which  in 
the  continent  of  Europe  would  make  a  very 
decent  empire.  Forests  and  game?  Oh,  yes. 
Take  the  ''Flyer"  which  the  Aroostook  Rail- 
road people  give  you,  and  you  will  suppose  that 
man  was  made  for  nothing  but  to  shoot  deer  or 
moose  in  the  wilderness.  Or  here  is  another 
"Flyer"  which  will  tell  you  about  matchless 
salmon  and  salmon  trout  and  the  rest  of  the  fishy 
literature.  What  I  want  you  to  understand 
about  Maine  is  that  these  people  are  well  poised, 
well  educated,  proud,  and  well  satisfied  with  the 
place  where  they  are. 

It  was  my  duty  once  to  appoint  the  chief  of  a 
new  industrial  school.  Almost  of  course,  I  con- 
sulted Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong,  "the  first 
citizen  of  America,"  who  was  at  the  head  of  the 
Hampton  Institute.  He  said  at  once,  "Go  to 
Maine,  and  you  are  almost  sure  to  find  the 
man  you  want  there."  He  specified  their  State 
College  at  Orono,  but  he  went  farther  to  say  that 
in  Maine  they  had  the  fine  nobility  of  New  Eng- 
land blood,   with  the  simple  habits  of  the  old 


46 


TARRY    AT    HOME   TRAVELS 


New  Englander  and  the  New  Englander's  deter- 
mination to  excel  the  rest  of  mankind.  Presi- 
dent Robbins,  of  the  Waltham  Watch  Company, 
once  told  rpe  that  once  a  year  he  sent  an  accom- 
plished lady  into 
the  upper  valley 
of  the  Kennebec, 
and  that  she 
stayed  there  a 
month  or  two  en- 
listing  a  party 
of  well-educated 
young  women 
w  ho  should 
come  back  with 
her  to  Waltham 
in       Massachu- 


WiLLiAM  DeWitt  Hyde,  D.D. 

President  of  Bowdoin  College  since  1885. 


setts.  It  is  thus, 
gentle  reader, 
that  your  Waltham  watch  is  one  of  a  company 
of  a  million  or  two,  one  of  which  on  one  happy 
day  once  corrected  the  standard  of  Greenwich 
Observatory. 


THE   STATE   OF   MAINE  47 

I  spoke  just  now  of  beavers  at  the  north  and 
of  the  picture  gallery  in  Bowdoin  College  which 
is  within  smell  of  the  ocean  on  the  south.  Do 
not  go  up  to  the  north  to  kill  beavers,  but  you 
may  make  yourself  a  ''camp"  there  and  stay 
a  fortnight  while  you  watch  their  sensible  enter- 
prises. Or  go  down  to  the  Commencement  at 
Bowdoin  and  find  yourself  in  the  midst  of  their 
traditions  of  Hawthorne,  Longfellow,  Andrew, 
Chandler,  Packard,  and  Upham,  or  in  that  fresh 
present  life  which  Dr.  Hyde  leads  so  well. 

I  loitered  there  one  day  to  study  the  crayons 
and  other  drawings  which  the  younger  Bowdoin 
brought  from  Spain  and  from  Italy.  I  had 
never  seen  that  collection  rivalled  excepting  one 
day  when  Ruskin  showed  me  somewhat  similar 
portfolios  in  English  Oxford,  and  I  cannot  help 
wishing  that  somebody,  even  now,  would  give 
us  a  study  of  the  lives  of  the  two  Bowdoins, 
father  and  son.  Here  was  tlfs  Governor  of 
Massachusetts  who,  under  the  name  of  the 
'^President  of  the  Council,"  ''ran  Massachusetts" 
from   1775  till   1780,   and  afterwards  succeeded 


48  TARRY   AT   HOME  TRAVELS 

Hancock  as  Governor.  Here  was  his  son  who 
was  travelhng  in  Europe  when  Lexington  called 
him  home.  He  was  one  of  our  early  diplomatists, 
and  he  became  the  benefactor  of  Bowdoin  Col- 
lege. He  left  his  library,  his  philosophical  re- 
ports, and  his  paintings,  with  six  thousand 
acres  of  land  and  the  reversion  of  the  island 
of  Naushon,  to  this  College.  His  mineralogical 
collection  was  the  nucleus  of  the  cabinets  which 
Professor  Cleveland  studied  and  illustrated. 

Ah !  here  is  one  of  my  failures  to  put  the  right 
thread  into  the  right  needle  at  the  right  time. 
It  must  be  twenty  years  ago  that  I  was  the 
guest  of  the  College  for  some  function,  and  had 
the  pleasure  of  sitting  at  the  Commencement 
dinner.  Dr.  Packard  was  presiding,  loved  and 
honored  by  everybody  who  knew  him.  James 
Gillespie  Blaine  was  at  the  height  of  his  fame, 
and  admired  and  loved  by  everybody  in  that 
assembly.  And  when  he  was  called  upon  to 
speak  he  spoke  with  all  that  personal  charm 
which  belonged  to  his  speeches  w^hen  he  was 
talking  of  that  which  really  interested  him.    He 


THE   STATE    OF    MAINE 


49 


characterized  Dr.  Packard  to  his  face,  and,  to 
our  dehght,  told  us  what  manner  of  man  he 
was.     With  an  old  reporter's  instinct,   I  seized 


Professor  Alpheus  Spring  Packard. 

After  the  paiutiug  by  F.  P.  Vinton  in  tlie  Walker  Art  Building, 

Bowdoin  College. 

the  printed  menu  at  my  side  and  began  writing 
on  the  back  the  words  as  they  fell  from  his  lips; 
but  in  an  instant  more  some  Philistine  voice  said 
within  me:  ^'Why  do  you  do  this?    There  are 


60  TARRY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

six  reporters  at  their  table  eagerly  taking  it 
better  than  you  could."  And  I  laid  my  pencil 
by.  Alas  and  alas !  there  was  some  football 
match  at  Princeton  or  at  Harlem  that  day. 
The  blue  pencil  of  all  editorial  offices  struck  out 
Mr.  Blaine's  address  for  the  more  important 
details  of  a  touchdown  l^y  Smith  when  Jones 
had  dropped  the  ball  in  the  gravel,  and  so  that 
speech  was  lost.  Before  the  week  was  over  Dr. 
Packard  had  died,  and  I  have  been  left  with  the 
wish  that  on  a  great  occasion  I  had  done  what 
I  wanted  to  do  and  could  do. 

Moral.  —  It  is  always  better  to  do  a  thing 
than  not  to  do  it,  if  you  remember  duly  the 
Twelve  Commandments. 

Yes,  if  there  were  room  to  talk  of  people, 
there  are  many,  many  men  who  won  their  laurels 
in  Maine  who  deserve  a  place  in  any  Hall  of 
Fame:  Champlain,  whose  monument  is  his  own 
lake;  Baron  Castine,  whose  life  is  a  romance; 
Knox,  who  ''created  all  the  stores  of  war"  and 
has  left  behind  him  men  and  women  for  whom 
we  are  all  grateful  (he  went  down  to  Maine  and 


General  Henry  Knox. 

From  the  painting  by  Charles  Willson  Peale  in  the  Old  State  House, 

Philadelphia. 


61 


THE    STATE    OF   MAINE  63 

opened  up  Knox  County  after  his  last  shotted 
cannon  had  been  fired  at  Yorktown) ;  Lincoln, 
Washington's  friend  and  sometimes  his  adviser; 
or,  in  these  later  days,  Evans,  Fessenden,  James 
G.  Blaine,  and  my  own  chief.  Senator  Frye,  the 
President  to-day  of  the  United  States  Senate/ 
There  is  an  excellent  story  which  I  can  re- 
peat nearly  correctly,  though  I  was  not  on  the 
spot  where  the  speech  was  made.  Our  Senator 
Frye  was  to  address  the  assembly  which  met 
when  a  stone  library  building  was  consecrated, 
which  had  been  erected  to  the  memory  of  Mrs. 
Washburne  in  Livermore  by  her  sons.  Before 
the  address  Mr.  Frye  had  been  in  the  old  Wash- 
burne mansion  house.  This  gave  him  a  chance 
to  say  that  he  had  seen  that  day  the  cradle  in 
which  she  had  rocked  three  governors,  four 
members  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  two 
senators  in  the  United  States  Senate,  two 
ministers  plenipotentiary,  one  major-general  in 
the  army,  and  one  captain  in  the  navy.  This 
is  a  long  catalogue,  but  if  the  reader  will  study 

'  1904. 


54  TARRY   AT   HOME  TRAVELS 

the  lives  of  Elihu  B.  Washburne,  of  W.  B.  Wash- 
burne,  Israel  Washburne,  and  Captain  S.  W. 
Washburne,  he  can  fill  out  the  blanks  in  Mr. 
Frye's  catalogue. 

How  one  would  like  to  show  how  near  these  men 
and  other  Maine  men  have  been  to  the  centres 
of  our  American  life !  Bowdoin  College  in  her 
list  of  alumni  counts  Hawthorne,  Henry  Long- 
fellow, Dr.  Cleveland,  both  Hamlins  and  Packard 
and  the  Chandlers,  Carroll  Everett,  and  Governor 
Andrew  and  so  many  more.  Let  me  speak  of 
the  Greenleafs  of  Huguenot  blood,  who  came  from 
Newburyport  after  the  war  and  settled  on  the 
upper  Penobscot.  Of  them  is  Simon  Greenleaf, 
the  jurist,  and  Moses  Greenleaf,  who  made  the 
map  of  Maine  on  the  wall  yonder.  His  son  was 
my  dear  and  near  friend,  my  other  self,  may  I 
say  ?  —  Frederic  William  Greenleaf,  who  died  in 
1852.  I  was  thirty,  and  he  a  year  or  two  older. 
He  is  the  Harry  Wadsworth  of  my  book,  ''Ten 
Times  One  is  Ten." 

I  spoke  above  of  my  first  visit  in  Portland. 
The  Longfellow   house   on   ]\Iain   Street   is   pre- 


THE   STATE  OF  MAINE  55 

served,  one  is  so  glad  to  say  in  this  age  of  destruc- 
tion. .  When  I  was  first  there,  Judge  Longfellow 
was  still  alive.     He  had  served  the  state  to  great 


The  Longfellow  House  in  Portland. 

purpose;  perhaps  he  did  not  know  then  how  his 
name  was  going  down  to  the  next  century.  ]\Iy 
Samuel  Longfellow  must  have  been  born  in  1819. 
I  saw  him  first  on  an  August  morning  in  1835, 
at  about  six  o'clock  in  the  morning.  I  had 
ridden  to  Cambridge  from  Boston  in  what  Dr. 


56  TARRY  AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

Holmes  would  have  called  a  ''one-horse  shay," 
to  be  examined  for  admittance  at  the  College. 
Almost  at  the  moment  when  we  arrived,  my 
brother  and  I,  in  front  of  "  University,"  two 
more  chaises  arrived,  both  of  them,  as  it  proved, 
from  the  ''State  of  Maine,"  so  simple  were  the 
arrangements  of  those  days.  In  one  of  them  was 
Francis  Brown  Hayes,  my  friend  from  that  hour 
till  he  died.  In  the  other  was  Samuel  Longfellow, 
of  whom  I  may  say  the  same.  He  was  my  grooms- 
man when  I  was  married;  he  wrote  the  hymn 
for  my  ordination.  North  and  south,  east  and 
west,  we  always  corresponded  with  each  other. 
He  was  one  of  those,  as  I  have  said,  who  sat 
where  John  Harvard  now  sits,  counting  the  shoot- 
ing stars.  It  was  he  and  I  who  took  that  voyage 
of  which  I  have  spoken  when  we  counted  the 
islands  in  Casco  Bay.  It  is  queer  that  I  should 
say  this  of  myself,  but  it  was  almost  the  first 
time  I  had  ever  been  in  a  boat,  though  I  was 
nineteen  years  old.  From  that  time  till  his  death 
he  went  on,  loyal  and  brave,  without  spot  or 
blemish  or  any  such  thing,  loving  and  loved.     He 


Hon.  Elihu  B.  Washbukne. 
Secretary  of  State  and  Minister  to  France  1869-77. 


57 


THE   STATE   OF   MAINE  59 

had  seen  the  vision  and  he  walked  with  God.  He 
came  perfectly  naturally  into  our  calling  of  the 
ministry.  Wherever  he  was  he  made  a  circle  of 
youngsters  who  loved  him  and  perhaps  wor- 
shipped him,  and  so  he  lifted  them  into  the 
Higher  Life. 

When  I  made  that  visit,  his  charming  sisters 
were  in  the  home.  One  of  them,  who  left  us  not 
long  ago,  married  into  the  Greenleaf  family. 

I  think  Henry  Longfellow  was  there  at  the 
same  time.  I  have  tried  to  express  in  public 
once  and  again  the  blessing  which  he  brought 
to  Harvard  College.  I  mark  its  history  with  a 
line  for  the  day  when  he  came  there,  only  twenty- 
nine  years  old.  Since  that  day  teacher  and 
pupil,  professor  and  undergraduate,  have  been 
of  one  heart  and  one  soul.  Up  till  that  time 
the  etiquette  required  that  a  professor  should  not 
recognize  the  existence  of  a  pupil  in  the  College 
yard.  Since  that  time  it  has  been  we  who  are 
going  to  do  this,  ive  who  have  done  that,  freshman 
and  dean  are  all  one  in  the  ''honorable  company 
of   letters."     For   here   was   this   young   fellow. 


60  TARRY   AT   HOME  TRAVELS 

Henry  Longfellow,  who  was  not  only  to  teach 
us  but  to  quicken  us  and  inspire  us  and  make  us 
glad  that  we  were  admitted  into  the  secrets  of 
learning  and  literature.  He  would  walk  with  us 
when  we  took  our  constitutional,  he  would  play 
a  game  of  whist  with  us  if  we  met  together  at 
Mrs.  Eliot's.  He  changed  the  routine  of  his  part 
of  the  College  from  the  routine  of  the  class  room 
to  the  courtesies  and  cordialities  of  a  parlor. 

And  it  would  take  a  volume  to  record  what 
Longfellow  was  in  the  amenities  and  charities 
of  home  life.  Till  he  died  that  old  Washington 
house  of  his  at  Cambridge  was,  one  might  say, 
the  trysting-place  of  every  tramp  from  France, 
or  Spain,  or  Bohemia,  or  Mesopotamia,  or  the  parts 
of  Libya  around  Cyrene,  who  could  not  speak 
the  English  language,  and  who  wanted  bread 
for  his  mouth  and  clothes  for  his  back.  And  not 
one  of  these  beggars  was  ever  turned  away.  I  be- 
lieve I  never  knew  but  one  nobleman  of  sixteen 
quarterings.  After  the  days  when  exiles  could 
return  home,  he  died  in  his  castle  on  the  Danube 
where  his  grandfather's  grandfather  had  been  bom. 


THE   STATE   OF   MAINE  61 

This  man  was  introduced  to  me  by  Henry  Long- 
fellow, whom  he  knew  because  he  had  gone  to  him 


James  G.  Blaike. 
From  a  photograph  by  Sarony. 


starving  and  half  naked,  in  need  of  everything, 
and  with  no  claim  upon  Longfellow  but  that  he 
had  suffered  with  Kossuth  in  his  country's  cause. 


62  TARRY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

They  tell  me  that  there  are  more  English  men 
and  English  women  who  read  and  know  Long- 
fellow's verses  than  there  are  who  read  and  know 
Tennyson's  in  the  same  island,  I  do  not  Imow 
if  this  is  so.  But  I  can  see  that  it  might  be  so. 
It  is  a  great  thing  to  be  the  poet  of  the  People. 
Do  you  remember  how  Dr.  Holmes  reminded  us 
that  Isaac  Watts  is  quoted  twenty  times  every 
day  for  once  when  a  line  of  Pope  or  Dryden  is 
repeated  ? 

But  we  are  to  look  in  at  the  windows  of  other 
places,  upon  the  faces  of  other  people,  and  for 
the  moment  we  must  bid  good-by  to  the  state  of 
Maine, 

''And  you  have  come  so  far,"  said  one  of  the 
readers  of  this  chapter  when  it  was  first  printed, 
''and  you  have  said  nothing  about  the  'Maine 
Law'?"  Yet  it  is  that  law  which  has  given  the 
name  of  Maine  to  the  world  of  English-speaking 
people,  and  half  the  people  who  will  ever  speak 
to  me  about  Maine  will  speak  to  me  to  ask  about 
it.  Very  well,  this  is  no  place  to  discuss  its  theory 
or  to  go  into  the  details  of  practice;  it  will  be 


THE   STATE   OF   MAINE  63 

enough  if  I  repeat,  what  is  true,  what  this  same 
James  Gillespie  Blaine  said  of  the  Maine  Law, 
"  It  found  Maine  a  poor  state  and  it  left  her  a 
rich  one." 


AIi.lYOl.iD'8      XyiAIRKM  Hinuph  ifir  W31i2}IBJ3PJTESS 
The  Amairnns  urtdrr  Gfn,^rficJd .  pfnelr/ilrd  though  an  imrrplcrrii  Wilderr 
ntss  to  (iufbecin  the  Full  of  177 J.  ar'ler  otrar  ifi/ticultus  and  privtitiau 

From  an  Old  Print 


CHAPTER  III 
NEW    HAMPSHIRE 

Persons  or  places?  Why,  both  persons  and 
places,  if  you  please,  gentle  reader.  If  you 
please,  for  places  we  can  go  up  to  the  Tip  Top 
House  on  Mount  Washington,  which,  before  we 
knew  of  the  North  Carolina  mountains,  we 
called  the  highest  land  east  of  the  Mississippi. 
Or  for  persons  we  can  go  to  Graduation 
Day  at  Exeter  and  see  the  young  American 
who  means  to  sway  the  rod  of  empire  in 
1935. 

And  here  am  I,  your  guide  and  mentor.  The 
first  time  I  stood  at  the  Tip  Top  House  was  at 
ten  o'clock  at  night  in  the  first  week  of  Septem- 
ber, 1841,  with  a  crowbar  in  my  hand  as  I  pressed 
upon  the  door.  It  was  after  a  tramp  from  Ran- 
dolph which  had  lasted  seventeen  hours  and  had 
taken  us  over  Jefferson  and  through  one  or  two 

64 


NEW  HAMPSHIRE 


65 


thunderstorms.  The  last  time  I  arrived  there  I  was 
with  an  old  friend  on  the  back  seat  of  a  victoria, 
with  four  horses  before  us  who  had  trotted  most 
of  the  way  from  the  Alpine  House.    And  the  at- 


MuuxT  Washington,  and  the  White  Hills. 
(From  near  Crawford's.) 

From  an  engraving  of  about  the  time  of  Dr.  Hale's  first  ascent. 

tentive  keeper  of  the  Tip  Top  House  ran  forward. 
''Is  this  you,  Dr.  Hale?  I  am  so  sorry  you 
are  just  too  late  for  our  dinner,  but  you  shall 
have  something  to  eat  by  the  time  you  are 
ready.  Would  you  rather  have  hot  chops,  or 
would  you  rather  have  some  tenderloin   steak? 


66  TARRY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

We  will  make  you  as  comfortable  as  we  can." 
This  is  what  happens  when  fifty  years  go  by. 
And  literally  one  of  my  last  visits  in  New  Hamp- 
shire was  on  that  day,  a  pathetic  day  as  it  proved, 
which  Exeter  boys  will  long  remember.  We 
dedicated  to  good  learning  and  high  patriotism 
two  noble  buildings  which  George  Shattuck  Mori- 
son  had  cared  for  and  for  which  I  believe  he  paid, 
— George  Morison,  the  king  of  American  engineers. 
He  died  a  few  weeks  after,  leaving  for  us  two  or 
three  leading  studies  of  American  duty  which 
must  not  be  forgotten. 

Yes,  it  is  just  as  it  was  in  Maine.  You  can 
box  the  compass.  Things?  If  you  want  things, 
you  can  have  them  on  a  large  scale.  Men  ?  If 
you  want  men,  why,  we  have  Daniel  Webster. 
We  will  not  say  in  this  connection  here,  we  have 
Franklin  Pierce.  On  a  small  scale,  remember 
that  somewhere  I  have  said  something  of  a 
baby  three  months  of  age  who  was  attended  by 
Mrs.  Jeremiah  Smith  when  she  was  Miss  Hale, 
a  charming  girl  of  seventeen,  who  came  to  visit 
my  dear  mother  in  the  public  house  of  Dover. 


NEW   HAMPSHIRE  67 

My  father,  with  some  scientific  friends,  was  at 
that  moment  attacking  "the  Notch,"  as  we  used 
to  call  it,  as  if  there  were  no  other,  and  ascend- 
ing by  the  early  pioneer  path  to  the  summit  of 
Mount  Washington.  Year  by  year  people  found 
out  how  attractive  all  that  region  is. 

To  me,  personally,  after  I  saw  it  on  the  Geo- 
logical Survey  of  New  Hampshire  in  1841,  it  be- 
came a  duty  as  it  became  a  privilege  to  go  up 
every  summer  and  thread  those  forests  again. 
The  glory  of  forests  is  more  than  the  glory  of 
mountains.  I  remember  I  used  to  say  that  if 
the  time  came  of  a  summer  when  I  did  not  want 
to  go  to  New  Hampshire,  I  knew  I  was  out  of 
order  somehow  and  ought  to  go.  And  with  the 
first  two  minutes  of  forest  life  Nature  asserted 
herself  and  I  was  well  again. 

If  any  one  wants  to  travel  in  New  Hampshire 
and  see  the  central  wonders  as  they  revealed 
themselves  to  Darby  Field,  that  original  Irish- 
man who  came  up  here  in  1642,  let  him  make 
roughly  on  the  margin  of  this  page  the  letter  M. 


68 


TARRY  AT   HOME   TRAVELS 


Then,  if  he  is  a  New  Yorker,  he  may  say: 
''I  will  go  up  by  the  vertical  stroke  of  the  left 
hand  of  the  M,  and  I  there  come  to  Bethlehem. 
I  will  go  down  from  Bethlehem  through  the 
Notch  till  I  come  to   Intervale.     I  will  go  up 


The  Dixville  Notch. 
From  a  photograph  copyright,  1900,  by  the  Detroit  Photographic  Co. 

again  from  Intervale  by  Pinkham's  Notch  to 
Gorham  and  the  Alpine  House,  and  then  I  will 
go  down  on  the  right-hand  vertical  of  the  M 
and  I  shall  come  to  Sebago  Pond  and  beau- 
tiful   Bridgton,   and  go  to    Portland,   the  most 


NEW   HAMPSHIRE  69 

charming  of  New  England  cities  excepting 
Burlington." 

Now,  if  he  choose,  he  may  go  down  from 
Bethlehem  through  the  valley  of  the  Pemige- 
wasset.  He  may  go  up  to  Waterville,  highest 
inhabited  land  in  New  England.  He  may  go 
down  to  Squam  Lake,  and  see  my  boys  on  Harry 
Sawyer's  farm ;  he  may  cruise  on  Winnepesaukee 
as  long  as  he  chooses,  and  he  may  go  across  on  foot 
or  on  his  donkey  through  Tamworth,  Conway, 
and  again  to  Intervale.  He  will  find  Intervale 
a  good  centre  w^th  memories  of  old  artist  days. 

But  there  are  other  regions  to  be  traversed. 
You  must  not  venture  to  talk  about  New  Hamp- 
shire till  you  have  been  through  the  Dixville 
Notch.  If  you  have  the  real  Bohemian  spirit  in 
you,  you  w^ill  take  a  birch  canoe  (which,  believe 
me,  is  better  than  a  cedar)  at  Connecticut 
Lake,  the  head  of  Connecticut  River. ^  Why  not 
look   in   on  Senator  Spooner  if   the  Senate   has 

1  This  is  as  good  a  place  as  any  to  say  that  Connecticut 
means  a  long  tidal  river,  and  that  the  experts  spell  it  quinneh- 
tukqut.  Winthrop  bought  corn  in  the  Connecticut  Valley  the 
first  year  after  his  people  came  here. 


70 


TARKY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 


adjourned?  You  will  come  out  sunburnt  and 
strong  at  Saybrook  on  Long  Island  Sound. 
Or,  after  three  or  four  weeks  of  happy  adven- 
ture on  Connecticut  River,  you  will  go  across 
to  Rangeley  and   try  there  for  salmon  trout  or 


■'^^^S^^M 

-■ 

n 

..■  'r  :•    ■  -'                      '                                    '■'    .-■  X    ■.'--! 

On  the  Presidential  Range. 

for  salmon.  You  will  find  one  or  two  Senators 
there;  or  you  will  study  the  grandeur  of  their 
Lake  Country  there;  or  you  will  wander  in  the 
quarries  of  granite  which  are  just  on  the  eastern 
side  of  the  line  of  Maine,  but  more  accessible 
from  New  Hampshire. 


NEW   HAMPSHIRE  71 

At  Diana's  Bath,  or  Pigwacket,  there  is  much 
which  Pan  and  the  Oreads  and  Naiads  have  to 
show  you;  and,  as  the  Pope  says  of  Rome,  after 
you  have  been  with  us  some  years,  you  will  find 
that  you  know  nothing. 

And  now  as  for  Men,  on  the  other  hand.  These 
people  always  had  a  sturdy  habit  of  their  own. 
We  people  in  Boston  Bay  sent  them  into  exile 
when  we  made  an  end  of  Anne  Hutchinson  and 
the  other  Mystics  and  Progressives  of  her  time. 
For  the  first  and  the  last  time  in  New  England, 
what  men  now  call  a  Presbytery  sat  on  the  First 
Church  in  Boston  in  1636,  and  the  Common- 
wealth was  foolish  enough  to  send  into  exile  the 
most  intelligent  members  of  that  Church  in 
Boston,  and  left  only  a  few  dozen  at  home  to 
pick  up  the  pieces  and  make  Boston  out  of  them 
as  well  as  they  could.  So  these  people,  whose 
names  are  Maude,  Wheelwright,  and  Pormort, 
among  others,  with  a  half-dozen  more,  went 
beyond  the  Massachusetts  line  to  Exeter  and 
Dover  and  Portsmouth.  I  may  say,  in  passing, 
that  they  pronounced  Portsmouth  as  if  it  were 


72 


TAEEY  AT   HOME   TRAVELS 


Porchmouth;  and  their  true  descendants  speak  so 
to  this  day.     It  was  Strawberry  Bank  then. 

Well,  sometimes  these  exiles  wanted  the  strong 
arm  of  Massachusetts  to  help  them,   and  then 

they  always 
h a d  i  t.  An 
ancestor  of 
mine,  Captain 
John  Everett, 
commanded 
the  train-bands 
of  Massachu- 
setts Bay  there 
for  a  genera- 
tion  when 
Jesuits  and  Al- 
gonquins  were 
too  much  for 
the  settlers. 
But,  on  the 
other  hand,  whenever  they  chose,  they  had  an 
assembly  of  their  own  and  did  veiy  much  as  they 
pleased,  and  I  think  that  is  their  habit  to  this  day. 


Eleazar  Wheelock. 

From  a  painting  in  the  possession  of 

Dartmouth  College. 


NEW   HAMPSHIRE  73 

Among  other  pieces  of  independence  was  the 
revolution  in  the  great  Democratic  party,  by 
which  in  1843  and  1844  New  Hampshire  became 
the  first  in  point  of  time  of  American  states  to 
make  an  anti-slavery  platform,  while  up  to  that 
time,  in  a  spirit  of  local  independence,  she  had 
always  chosen  to  give  a  Democratic  vote  and  so 
to  ally  herself  to  the  Southern  hierarchy.  When 
it  came  to  the  annexation  of  Texas,  however,  the 
Democrats  of  New  Hampshire  said  ''No!"  and 
instead  of  voting  steadily  in  the  Southern  column, 
they  went  over  and  laid  the  advance  for  freedom. 

One  of  the  pioneers,  whose  name,  Eleazar 
Wheelock,  is  hardly  remembered,  took  it  into 
his  head  before  the  American  Revolution  to 
found  a  college  which  was  to  be  especially  for 
the  "education  of  Indians  for  the  service  of 
Christ."  Mr.  Edwin  D.  Mead  reminds  me  that 
A\Tieelock  was  educated  at  New  Haven  as  one 
of  the  scholars  who  were  there  supported  by 
Berkeley's  bounty.  It  was  thus,  as  it  proved, 
that  Berkeley  established  his  American  college. 
"  Westward  the  star  of  empire  takes  its  way." 


74  TAERY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

Wheelock  went  to  England,  and  there  he  found 
favor  with  Lord  Dartmouth,  the  one  member  of 
Lord  North's  Cabinet  who  was  ''pure,  peace- 
able, gentle,  and  easy  to  be  entreated,  given  to 
mercy  and  good  works,  without  partiality  and 
without  hypocrisy."  And  the  Earl  of  Dartmouth 
was  good  to  the  Indian  apostle,  who  named  his 
college  Dartmouth  College  in  his  memory.  In  a 
diary  of  that  century  I  find  it  called  Dresden  Col- 
lege. They  tell  me  that  while  I  write,^  the  present 
Earl  of  Dartmouth  is  girding  on  his  armor  and  pre- 
paring to  take  an  ocean  voyage  to  see  the  Dart- 
mouth College  of  to-day.  ''A  little  college," 
Daniel  Webster  said.  ''But  she  has  children  who 
love  her." 

Portsmouth?  Yes.  All  of  you  have  read 
Miss  Jewett's  novel,  "The  Tory  Lover,"  or  if 
you  have  not,  you  will  thank  me  for  telling  you 
to  do  so.  There  you  get  a  bit  of  Paul  Jones,  and 
in  Mr.  Buell's  history,  which  reveals  so  much  to 

1  Since  the  words  were  written  above,  the  Earl  of  Dartmouth 
has  made  his  auspicious  visit  to  Dartmouth  College.  The  new 
generation  was  delighted  to  honor  him,  and  he  and  his  party 
have  left  the  most  agreeable  remembrances  behind  them. 


Lord  Daktmouth. 
From  a  painting  in  tlie  possession  of  Dartmouth  College. 


75 


NEW   HAMPSHIRE  77 

US,  you  have  Paul  Jones  at  greater  length  and  so 
at  much  greater  advantage.  What  a  pity  it  is 
that  we  have  lost  Mr.  Buell  just  as  we  discovered 
that  we  had  another  historian !  In  their  en- 
thusiasm for  Paul  Jones  the  Continental  Congress 
ordered  that  the  plan  should  be  drawn  and  the 
timber  collected  with  which  to  build  a  ship  of 
the  line,  America,  which  was  to  be  the  flagship 
of  this  great  American  seaman.  No  more  rotten 
Poor  Richards  for  him.  He  shall  have  an  Ameri- 
can ship  built  from  American  woods  for  an 
American  seaman.  Thirty-two  years  before, 
Portsmouth  had  built  a  frigate  America  for  the 
English  navy,  but  we  shall  have  an  America 
of  our  own.  The  new  ship  of  the  line  was  just 
about  finished,  I  have  a  right  to  say  probably 
the  finest  vessel  of  her  class  in  the  world,  when 
the  French  king's  ship,  the  Magnifique,  ran 
against  a  rock  in  Boston  Harbor  and  sank.  I 
am  afraid  her  bones  are  there  to  tliis  day.  And 
the  fickle  Congress  forgot  its  own  Admiral,  gave 
the  America  to  ^'our  illustrious  ally,"  and 
McCarthy,   commander  of  the  Magnifique,  took 


78  TARRY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

his  sailors  down  to  Portsmouth  to  superintend 
her  fitting  for  the  ocean.  Here  I  have  his  Log 
Book  of  those  days,  if  you  would  only  read  it, 
but,  alas !   you  do  not  care  for  history. 

Her  after  histoiy  is  given  to  me  very  kindly 
by  Mr.  Gauss,  of  our  Navy  Department.  It 
appears  that  in  1793  she  sailed  under  Admiral 
Sercy  from  Brest  for  Santo  Domingo,  to  convoy 
loaded  merchant  vessels  ready  to  return  to 
France.  This  and  other  ships  of  the  French 
navy  were  detained  in  the  West  Indies,  owing 
to  the  insurrection  in  Santo  Domingo  and  other 
causes,  until  June  24,  1793,  when  Admiral  Sercy 
started  out  with  his  fleet.  Some  of  them  are 
mentioned  by  name  as  coming  to  the  United 
States  ports  for  supplies,  and  some  are  named 
as  reaching  Brest  late  in  November,  1793.  The 
next  summer,  on  the  celebrated  first  of  June, 
when  Lord  Howe  l3eat  the  French  squadron  off 
Ushant,  she  was  taken  into  the  British  navy  and 
named  the  Impetueux.  This  change  was  made 
because  they  had  already  an  America.  The 
French  ship   Impetueux,  which  had  been  taken 


NEW   HAMPSHIRE 


79 


at  Ushant,  had  been  burned  at  Portsmouth, 
England,  and  her  name  Impetueux  was  given  to 
this  larger  America  in  commemoration  of  the 
French  ship. 

As  U Impetueux  she  became  a  favorite  ship 
in  the  English  navy. 
They  told  me  at  the 
Admiralty  that 
when  Lord  Ex- 
mouth  (Sir  Edward 
Pellew)  was  to  com- 
mand the  fleet,  he 
chose  U Impetueux 
as  his  flagship. 

All  this  I  have 
said  in  such  detail 
because  the  late  Mr. 
Bueil,  in  his  invalu- 
able life  of  Paul  Jones,  had  been  misled.  He 
says  that  King  Louis  changed  the  name  of  our 
America  into  the  Franklin.  Now,  the  Franklin 
was  the  ship  captured  at  Aboukir  by  Lord  Nelson. 
She  was  considered  the  finest  two-deck  ship  in 


John  Paul  Jones. 
From    the  original    miniature    in   tlie 
United   States   Naval   Institute,  An- 
napolis, Md. 


80  TAKRY  AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

the  world,  but  she  is  not  our  America.  And  it  is  a 
pity  that  this  mistake  should  have  worked  its 
way  into  literature.  Our  American  Impetueux 
is  sometimes  rated  as  a  seventy-four-gun  ship 
and  sometimes  as  seventy-eight. 

But  poor  Paul  Jones  was  left  lamenting  be- 
cause we  wanted  to  make  a  present  to  ''our 
illustrious  ally." 

In  my  own  earlier  days,  camping  for  a  night 
under  a  white  pine  and  an  open  sky,  I  remember 
an  old  forester  told  me  that  he  had  seen  the 
broad  arrow  of  King  George  on  pines  in  that 
forest  which  were  too  far  from  water  to  be  carried 
to  the  Merrimac.  I  think  it  quite  likely  that 
some  old  Appalachian  may  find  King  George's 
broad  arrow  at  this  day. 

The  Appalachian  Club  of  New  England  is  an 
excellent  club.  Semiramis  says  that  it  is  the 
only  club  in  Boston  which  has  a  real  raison 
d'etre.  Perhaps  this  is  true.  Anyway,  it  brings 
together  young  men  and  maidens,  wise  men  and 
people  who  know  as  little  as  I  do,  but  who  love 
the  open  air,  who  are  not  afraid  to  be  alone  with 


NEW   HAMPSHIRE  81 

God,  and  so  are  willing,  if  need  be,  to  lie  on  hem- 
lock boughs  with  a  fire  burning  a  cord  of  wood 
at  one's  feet,  and  look  up  on  the  sky.  Now  this 
Appalachian  Club  does  not  satisfy  itself  with  ster- 
eoscopic pictures  in  winter  or  sonnets  addressed 
to  robin  redbreasts  or  the  starry  canopy.  But 
it  sends  into  the  wilderness  such  men  as  Mr. 
Edmands,  and  as  my  friends  the 
Lowes,  to  make  paths  to  and  es- 
stablish  camps  and  leave  water- 
mugs  for  the  benefit  of  wayfarers, 
and  sometimes  an  enthusiast  '"^^  ^^^""^  ^^'^^^• 
gives  them  a  few  cents  or  a  few  dollars  with 
which  to  buy  a  few  pine  trees  to  preserve  them 
for  posterity.  Blessings  on  the  Appalachian 
Club,  and  blessings  on  the  Forestry  Association 
of  New  Hampshire !  Let  the  reader  reflect  that 
the  Soracte  mines  gave  him  ten  per  cent  last 
month  instead  of  seven,  and  let  him  send  that 
extra  three  per  cent  which  he  does  not  know 
what  to  do  with  to  the  treasurer  of  the  Appala- 
chian and  bid  him  buy  a  little  bit  of  pine  forest 
for   the    benefit  of    the    reader's  great-grandson 


82  TARRY  AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

in  1975,  and  let  that  great-grandson  take  this 
volume  out  from  the  library  and  thank  me  for 
the  suggestion. 

Do  not  fear  to  come  up  here  from  New  Padua, 
from  Baltimore,  from  Knoxville,  from  New 
Orleans,  or  from  Waco.  We  have  a  fine  set  of 
guides,  who  know  what  they  are  about,  who 
neither  drink,  nor  swear,  nor  steal,  nor  play 
''high-low,"  but  who  love  to  make  you  love  the 
forests  and  the  mountains.  Let  it  be  for  only 
twenty-four  hours  if  you  please,  or  let  it  be  for 
six  months  if  j^ou  please.  Put  yourself  fairly 
into  the  forest  reserve,  to  see  what  there  is  to 
be  seen,  to  eat  what  there  is  to  eat,  to  do  what 
there  is  to  do,  and  to  enjoy  all  there  is  to  enjoy, 
and  then  you  will  not  need  to  read  our  papers 
on  New  Hampshire. 

And,  not  to  let  this  chapter  pass  without  say- 
ing something  of  persons  as  well  as  places,  let 
me  counsel  my  pupil  to  spend  time  enough  at 
Dartmouth  College  to  understand  what  is  the 
charm  that  it  has  for  everybody.  It  is  under 
the  direction  of  one  of  the  first  educators  of  our 


83 


NEW  HAMPSHIRE 


85 


time,  Dr.  Tucker.  From  the  time  of  John 
Ledyard  (who  is  now  forgotten,  as  he  ought  not 
to  be)  to  these  days,  when  so  many  of  our  ac- 
tive statesmen  hark  back  to  their  happy  years 
at  Dartmouth,  it 
has  been  gaining  on 
the  right  hand  and 
on  the  left  hand, 
above  and  below, 
behind  and  before. 
Never  were  more 
august  ceremonies 
than  those  of  the 
hundredth  anniver- 
sary of  Daniel  Web- 
ster's Commence- 
ment. Never  have 
people  loved  their 
Alma  Mater  more  than  Webster  did,  than  Choate 
did,  or  Ticknor,  or  Field,  or  some  of  these  younger 
men  who  are  on  the  stage  to-day.  With  great  good 
sense,  the  government  of  the  College  manages 
to  connect  its  scientific  school  with  the  necessities 


Dr.  William  Jewett  Tucker. 
President  of  Dartmouth  College. 


86  TAKKY  AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

of  the  times.  With  great  good  sense,  they  have 
administered  their  College  so  that  study  and 
learning,  science  and  literature,  are  still  the  fash- 
ion as  the  foundation  there. 

This  is  a  good  place  to  repeat  the  story  which 
the  late  Senator  Patterson  told  me  upon  the 
spot.  He  took  me  to  the  magnificent  elm  which 
stands  at  one  corner  of  the  open  common  in 
Hanover  and  made  me  remark  the  exquisite 
beauty  of  twenty  or  more  branches  as  they  rise 
and  curve  and  bend  toward  the  ground.  It  is 
one  of  the  noble  specimens  of  the  American  elm 
which  justifies  well  Michaux's  remark  that  the 
American  elm  is  queen  of  the  forests  of  the  world. 
Mr.  Patterson  told  me  that  when  he  himself  was 
a  student  he  assisted  one  of  the  professors  who 
bound  together  a  number  of  little  elms,  each  as 
big  as  your  thumb  perhaps,  and  planted  them 
together  in  this  corner  of  the  quadrangle.  They 
have  grown  together  and  are  now  one  tree. 

As  for  the  Academy  at  Exeter,  it  won  its 
honors  early,  and  it  holds  them  with  pride  to 
this    day.     One    of    the    Phillipses    of    Andover 


NEW   HAMPSHIRE 


87 


endowed  the  school,  and  he  builded  a  great  deal 
better  than  he  knew.  No  boys  are  better  fitted 
for  college  than  its  pupils  are.  And  the  reason 
is  that  somehow  the  true  democratic  principle 
has  intrenched  itself  there,  and  a  fellow  is  really 


Phillips  Exetb-.r  Aiademy. 

esteemed  as  he  attends  to  the  business  for  which 
academies  and  colleges  are  founded.  One  of  the 
school's  accomplished  instructors  said  to  me  once 
that  nothing  was  more  pathetic  than  to  watch 
the  first  three  months  of  a  boy  who  comes  to 
Exeter  supposing  that  he  is  going  to  fool  away 


88  TARRY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

his  father's  money  and  his  own  time  in  a  series 
of  sports,  where  the  studies  are  only  exceptions. 
You  might  make  a  Greek  tragedy,  ahnost,  out  of 
the  struggle  of  such  a  boy  with  his  old  self  when 
he  finds  that  work,  and  hard  work,  is  the  busi- 
ness of  the  place. 

The  Revolutionary  history  of  New  Hampshire 
would  make  an  excellent  book  if  one  of  the  new 
school  of  historians  would  take  it  up  and  would 
illustrate  it.  I  like  to  spend  a  month  every 
summer  in  Conway.  Well,  why  is  Conway  called 
Conway  ?  Because  General  Henry  Seymour  Con- 
way stood  up  for  the  colonists  so  well  in  the  dis- 
cussions of  the  English  Parliament  and  the  Stamp 
Act.  The  town  of  Boston  asked  Conway  for  his 
portrait  for  Faneuil  Hall,  and  he  sent  it  to  them ; 
and  General  Howe  stole  it  when  he  went  away, 
and  no  man  knows  where  the  real  portrait  is 
to-day.  But  a  better  monument  for  Conway  is 
in  the  lovely  summer  home  of  the  people  who 
breathe  God's  air  there. 

John  Stark,  the  New  Hampshire  general,  at 
the  rail  fence  at  Bunker  Hill,  must  have  seen, 


NEW   HAMPSHIRE 


89 


eye  to  eye,  William  Howe,  the  English  general 
who  attacked  him  and  was  repelled  there.  The 
Stark  regiment  covered  the  retreat  on  that  day 
which  men  thought  so  fatal  to  the  American 
army.     When   Howe   addressed   his   men   before 


Field-Marshal  Conway. 
From  an  engraving  of  1798. 


attacking  the  American  works,  he  said  he  would 
ask  them  to  go  no  farther  than  he  went  himself ; 
and  in  fact  he  marched  on  foot   with   the  regi- 


90  TAREY   AT   HOME  TRAVELS 

ment  by  the  side  of  its  colonel.  They  attacked 
Stark  and  the  New  Hampshire  regiment  who 
were,  as  we  New  Englanders  say,  ''behind  the 
rail  fence."  The  New  Hampshire  firing  was  so 
severe  that  the  English  regiment  gave  way,  and  it 
proved  when  the  day  was  over  that  every  officer 
of  the  Forty-second  was  killed  or  wounded. 
Howe  alone  bore  a  charmed  life.  And  one  of  the 
letters  of  the  time  says  that  his  white  silk  stock- 
ings were  bloody  from  the  blood  on  the  grass  as 
he  retreated  with  the  rest. 

Stark  afterward  thought  that  the  Continental 
Congress  had  slighted  him,  so  when  he  cut  off 
Baum  and  his  party  at  Bennington,  he  made  the 
report  of  his  victory  to  the  state  of  New  Hamp- 
shire and  to  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts 
but  not  to  the  Congress  at  Philadelphia.  We 
preserve  in  the  Massachusetts  State  House  the 
^'one  Hessian  gun  and  bayonet,  one  broad- 
sword, one  brass-barrelled  drum,"  which  Stark 
sent  us  after  that  clay.  It  is  rather  inter- 
esting to  know  how  people  did  such  things 
then;    so    I   will   put   on   record  the   resolution 


NEW   HAMPSHIRE 


91 


in  which  the  "Board  of  War"  was  instructed 
"to  present  to  the  Honourable  Brigadier-gen- 
eral Stark  a  complete  suit  of  clothes  becoming 
his    rank,    together   with    a    piece    of    linen    as 


John  makk. 


testimony  of  the  high  sense  this  Court  have  of 
the  great  and  important  services  rendered  by 
that  officer." 

Did  any  one  think  to  send  Admiral  Dewey  a 


92  TARRY  AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

new  uniform  on  the  1st  of  May,  1898?  My 
own  little  tribute  to  Stark  is  in  the  marching 
song  of  Stark's  men  as  he  took  them  down  to 
Bennington,  or,  as  he  called  it,  Wollomsac.  If 
we  can  trust  Colonel  Creasy,  the  history  of  Ben- 
nington and  what  followed  belongs  in  the  history 
of  the  fifteen  great  battles  of  the  world. 

THE   MARCHING    SONG    OF    STARK's    MEN^ 

March !  March  !  March  !  from  sunrise  till  it's  dark, 

And  let  no  man  straggle  on  the  way ! 
March  !  March  !  March  !  as  we  follow  old  John  Stark, 

For  the  old  man  needs  us  all  to-day. 

Load  !  Load  !  Load  !     Three  buckshot  and  a  ball, 
With  a  hymn-tune  for  a  wad  to  make  them  stay ! 

But  let  no  man  dare  to  fire  till  he  gives  the  word  to  all 
Let  no  man  let  the  buckshot  go  astray. 

Fire  !  Fire  !  Fire  !     Fire  all  along  the  line, 

When  we  meet  them  bloody  Hessians  in  array ! 

They  shall  have  every  grain  from  this  powder-horn  of 
mine, 
Unless  the  cowards  turn  and  run  away ! 

1  My  accomplished  friend,  Mr.  Whclpley,  has  set  this  march- 
ing song  to  music  for  the  benefit  of  the  New  Hampshire  school- 
boys. If  you  are  reading  the  Bible,  you  do  not  say  "marching 
song,"  but  a  "song  of  degrees." 


NEW   HAMPSHIRE  93 

Home  !  Home  !  Home  !     When  the  fight  is  fought  and 
won, 
To  the  home  where  the  women  watch  and  pray ! 
To  tell  them  how  John  Stark  finished  what  he  had  be- 
gun, 
And  to  hear  them  thank  our  God  for  the  day. 
August  16,  1777. 

These  latter  years  are  years  of  mourning  for 
us  who  love  New  Hampshire,  because  this  new 
business  of  paper  pulp  is  stripping  off  her  mag- 
nificent forests. 

In  old  times,  as  I  have  said,  King  George  sent 
his  surveyors  round,  and  when  they  saw  a  tree 
fit  for  his  navy,  they  marked  it  with  the  broad 
arrow  of  the  navy,  so  when  its  time  came  it  was 
cut  down  in  the  winter,  was  hauled  on  the  snow 
to  the  largest  stream  within  range,  and  floated 
down  to  the  ocean.  I  think  it  could  be  shown 
that  in  all  the  great  sea  fights  in  which  the 
English,  French,  Spanish,  or  American  navies 
were  engaged  between  1776  and  1790,  the  spars 
of  all  the  vessels  were  from  the  New  Hampshire 
forests.  So  other  ship-builders  cut  logs  and 
floated  them  down  if  they  were  big  enough  for 


94  TARRY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

spars    or    wide    enough    for    boards.     But    the 
'smaller  trees  were  left, 

"  Not  for  the  good  they  may  do  now, 
But  will  do  when  they're  grown  up." 

So  that  the  mountains  were  still  green,  and  so 
the  forests  still  grew  into  cathedral  aisles.  And 
with  every  summer  the  wilderness  was  alive  with 
glories  for  which  there  is  no  comparison. 

Then,  alas !  Satan  came  walking  up  and  down. 
And  he  devised  methods  of  making  paper  from 
wood  pulp.  Before  him,  when  angels  and  arch- 
angels presided  over  that  business,  paper  was 
made  of  such  rags  as  busy  housewives  minded 
to  see  the  end  of,  and  haply  of  older  paper 
which  had  served  its  turn. 

But  now,  alas  !  there  is  not  a  tree  in  the  forest, 
big  or  little,  old  or  young,  from  which  you  can- 
not make  paper. 

What  follows  is  that  you  enter  your  forest  with 
your  axes  in  summer  as  you  once  did  in  winter, 
and  you  cut  down  virtually  everything.  If  you 
leave  a  few  sumach  bushes  or  blackberry  vines,  it 


NEW   HAMPSHIRE  95 

is  because  they  are  not  worth  the  handhng,  they 
are  so  small.  Big  pines,  little  pines,  big  spruces, 
little  spruces,  big  hemlock,  little  hemlock,  —  all 
fall  before  the  axe.  All  is  grist  for  Satan's  mill. 
For  which  the  remedy  will  come  —  so  soon  as 
the  Congress  of  America  makes  a  National  Park 
of  the  White  Mountain  summits.  The  state  has 
surveyed  the  region  carefully,  and  a  fit  plan  has 
been  prepared.  Uncle  Sam  must  acquire  fifty 
square  miles,  be  the  same  more  or  less,  and  put 
it  in  charge  of  his  foresters.  And  then  my 
children's  children's  children  shall  see  the  great- 
grandchildren of  the  pines  that  I  saw  sixty  years 
ago,  in  place  of  the  sumach  and  other  rubbish 
that  the  pulp  creatures  have  left  us  to-day. 
We  ought  to  have  done  this  years  ago,  but  it  is 
not  too  late  for  the  twenty-first  century. 


CHAPTER  IV 
VERMONT 

Vermont  is  a  region  of  wonderful  picturesque 
beauty.  The  fields  are  very  fertile,  and  it  has 
proved  to  have  great  agricultural  resources. 
For  myself,  I  have  never  seen  fields  of  clover 
which  compared  with  the  rich  clover  fields  of 
Vermont  when  clover  is  in  blossom.  I  suppose 
there  are  such  fields  elsewhere,  but  I  never  saw 
them.  All  the  same,  the  first  English  settlement 
of  Vermont  was  as  late  as  the  year  1724,  when 
Fort  Dummer,  in  the  southern  part  of  the  state, 
was  established  by  the  province  of  Massachusetts. 
But,  as  has  been  said,  no  considerable  number  of 
settlers  went  in  until  the  Peace  of  1762  made 
that  frontier  of  New  England  secure  against 
foreign  invasion.  It  was  a  frontier  state,  and, 
as  I  said  in  speaking  of  Maine  just  now,  it  was  a 
field  of  war,  not  of  peace. 

96 


97 


VERMONT  99 

For  some  reason  or  other  there  were  no  native 
residents  there  at  the  time  when  our  first  white 
colonists  landed,  so  men  say.  It  seems  to  have 
been,  I  think,  by  a  sort  of  common  consent  on 
the  part  of  the  Indians  who  lived  in  New  Hamp- 
shire, Massachusetts,  and  New  York,  that  when, 
in  hunting,  the  Indians  met  each  other  there 
they  did  not  cut  each  other's  throats.  I  am  apt 
to  think,  however,  also,  that  if  a  part}^  of  Iroquois 
crossed  from  central  New  York  into  that  region, 
they  would  have  fought  against  the  Indians  of 
New  England,  who  were  their  standing  enemies. 
Remember  that  the  Iroquois  vocabulary  was 
absolutely  different  from  that  of  the  New  Eng- 
land tribes,  and  all  their  methods  of  social  life 
and  their  warfare  differed.  Has  any  one  ever 
heard  of  a  New  England  Indian  burning  a  prisoner 
to  death,  as  the  Iroquois  undoubtedly  often  did  ? 

Anyway,  what  is  sure  is  that  there  was  no 
resident  population  of  Indians  in  what  we  call 
Vermont,  though  in  summer  they  went  down  to 
Lake.  Champlain,  having  fished  and  hunted  deer 
up  and  down  through  the  valleys. 


100 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


While  the  New  Hampshire  mountains  rest 
mostly  on  granite,  the  mountain  range  of  the 
Green  Mountains  which  runs  through  Vermont 
rests  on  slates  and  shales  which  are  often  tipped 
up  almost  perpendicularly. 

So  it  happens  that  the  mountains  of  Vermont 
are  more  picturesque,  on 
the  whole,  than  are  the 
New  Hampsliire  moun- 
tains. That  sort  of  pud- 
dingy aspect  which  people 
criticise  in  our  dear 
Mount  Washington  hardly 
appears  in  the  Green 
Mountains.  For  the  same 
reason  the  river  gorges  are 
more  like  the  canons  of  the  West  than  any  other 
valleys  in  New  England.  The  story  is  a  familiar 
one  of  the  country  doctor  who,  pressing  his  horse 
home  at  midnight  over  a  bridge  which  he  had 
crossed  by  daylight,  found  the  horse  very  unwil- 
ling to  go.  It  proved  next  day  that  he  had 
pressed   the   horse   along   a   stringpiece    of    the 


General  Wolfe. 


»-    B 


101 


VERMONT  103 

bridge,  from  which  the  boards  had  been  washed 
away  since  he  passed  early  in  the  day.  This 
story  is  told,  perfectly  authenticated,  I  should 
say,  of  one  of  the  streams  which  flows  into  Lake 
Champlain.  It  is  told  just  as  well  authenticated 
in  Berkshire  County  in  Massachusetts.  And  a 
correspondent  tells  me  that  the  same  -story  is 
told  of  the  Ausable  River  in  New  York.  The 
reader  may  judge  whether  the  same  thing  hap- 
pened three  times.  What  I  know  is  that  it 
might  have  happened  at  any  of  these  gorges. 
The  walls  of  the  torrent  in  all  cases  are  a  sort  of 
slaty  shale  wliich  rises  perpendicular  from  the 
water. 

The  civilized  history  of  Vermont  begins  only 
when  the  incursions  of  Indians  and  Jesuits 
ceased  with  Wolfe's  victory  at  Quebec.  Then  be- 
gan an  enthusiasm  for  settlement  of  those  beauti- 
ful valleys.  There  are  still  extant  the  records  of 
the  parties  which  were  sent  from  one  or  another 
town  of  Connecticut,  Massachusetts,  or  New 
Hampshire,  and  some  of  their  marching  songs. 
Thus  there  grew  up  the  sturdy  set  of  Green  Moun- 


104 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


tain  boys  who  give  such  picturesqueness  to  the 
history  of  that  whole  region.  In  1777  the  Enghsh 
-^  governors  of  Canada 
^  hoped  that  they  should 
seduce  these  people  from 
allegiance  to  the  Conti- 
nental Congress,  which 
had  never  done  anything 
for  them.  An  officer  of 
rank  was  imprudent 
enough  to  try  to  seduce 
Ethan  Allen  when  Allen 
was  a  prisoner  in  New 
York.  He  told  Allen  that 
he  should  be  the  colonel 
of  a  regiment,  should  be 
presented  to  the  king,  and 
should  have  ''a  large 
tract  of  land  either  in  the 
New  Hampshire  Grants 
or  in  Connecticut." 
Ethan  Allen  replied :  ''I 
told   liim   that   if  by  faithfulness  I  had  recom- 


Ethax  Allen. 
"  In  the  Name  of  the  Great  Jeho- 
vah and  the  Continental  Con 
gress  !  " 


VERMONT  105 

mended  myself  to  General  Howe,  I  should  be 
loath  by  unfaithfulness  to  lose  the  governor's 
good  opinion.  Besides  that,  I  viewed  the  offer 
of  land  to  l^e  similar  to  that  which  the  devil 
offered  Jesus  Christ,  'to  give  him  all  the  king- 
doms of  the  world  if  he  would  fall  down  and 
worship  him,'  when  at  the  same  time  the  damned 
soul  had  not  a  foot  of  land  on  earth." 

From  that  day  to  this  day  Vermont  has  earned 
the  name,  among  people  who  know  anything 
about  it,  of  a  model  democracy.  I  wish  that 
one  of  the  intelligent  Swiss  writers  on  govern- 
ment would  come  over  here  to  see  how  they  do 
things  in  Vermont.  You  see,  there  are  no  very 
large  cities.  Burlington,  the  largest  of  them  all, 
is  a  model  city  for  the  world  to  take  note  of  and 
keep  in  memory. 

I  like  to  put  in  here  a  description  of  Burlington 
which  I  made  in  a  speech  before  Alpha  Delta  Phi  at 
its  annual  convention  in  New  York  in  1888.  I  had 
had,  not  long  before,  a  friendly  passage  with  Mat- 
thew Arnold,  who  had  said  rather  carelessly  that 
there  was  nothing  '^  distinguished "  in  America. 


106 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


'^When  I  heard  in  conversation  this  criticism, 
wliich  I  had  never  seen  in  print,  about  the  absence 
of  anything  ^distinguished'  in  our  cities,  I  asked 
myself  what  was  the  last  American  city  I  had 
visited  in  my  winter  travels.  As  it  happened,  it 
was   one   of   the   smallest   of  American    cities  — • 


^'II•:\v  UK  Bltulixoton,   Vermont. 
Fruni  an  old  copperplate  engraving. 

the  city  of  Burlington,  in  the  state  of  Vermont. 
I  may  be  told  that  there  was  nothing  distinguished 
there.  Perhaps  not;  but  I  know  that,  as  we 
entered  the  town,  as  I  looked  back  on  the  Green 
Mountains,  which  had  been  white  with  snow 
all  day,  but  were  now  rosy  red  in  the  glory  of 


VERMONT  107 

the  setting  sun,  I  thought  it  was  one  of  the 
noblest  visions  I  had  ever  looked  upon.  I 
turned  to  look  upon  the  clouds  of  sunset  —  to 
see,  far  away,  the  sun  as  he  went  down  between 
the  broken  range  of  the  Adirondack  Mountains. 
Between  was  tlie  white  ice  of  Lake  Champlain. 
So  far  as  Nature  has  anything  to  offer  to  the 
eye,  I  had  certainly  never  seen  in  the  travels 
of  forty  years  any  position  chosen  for  a  city  more 
Hkely  to  impress  a  traveller  as  remarkable,  and 
to  live  always  in  his  memory.  I  had  been 
summoned  to  Burlington  on  an  errand  con- 
nected with  the  public  administration  of  charity. 
It  was  supposed  that,  as  I  came  from  Boston,  I 
knew  how  cities  ought  to  be  governed.  Any- 
way, I  was  up  there  as  an  expert.  Now,  what 
was  the  chief  thing  I  found?  Those  of  you  who 
have  ever  been  in  Burlington  will  know  that  I 
was  in  a  city  of  palaces.  I  mean  by  that,  that 
there  are  private  homes  there,  which,  while  they 
have  the  comforts  of  a  log  cabin,  display  the 
elegances  of  a  palace.  But  I  shall  be  told  that 
this  is  not   distinguished  now  —  that  this  may 


108      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

be  seen  everywhere  in  a  country  as  rich  as 
America.  Let  it  be  so.  Then  they  took  me  to 
visit  a  new  hospital,  arranged  with  everything 
which  modern  science  knows  for  the  treatment 
of  disease,  with  a  staff  of  surgeons  and  physi- 
cians who  might  stand  unawed  before  the  great 
leaders  in  their  profession;  and  they  told  me 
that  here  any  person  in  Vermont  who  was  in 
need  could  be  treated  by  the  best  science  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  with  the  tenderest  care 
which  the  Christian  religion  inspires.  They  told 
me  that  this  institution  was  maintained  by  a 
fund  of  nearly  half  a  million  dollars,  given  by 
one  lady,  for  this  purpose  of  blessing  her  brothers 
and  sisters  of  mankind.  If  this  be  a  common- 
place monument,  let  us  thank  God  that  we  live 
in  a  commonplace  land.  They  took  me  then  to 
the  public  hbrary.  They  showed  me  the 
Canadian  immigrants  from  the  other  side  of  the 
border  thronging  the  passages  that  each  might 
have  his  French  book  to  read,  the  German  immi- 
grant pressing  for  his  book;  they  showed  a  per- 
fect administration  for  the  supply  of  these  needs. 


VERMONT  109 

And  they  showed  me  that  they  had  not  only 
provided  for  the  rank  and  file  in  this  way  — 
providing,  observe,  thousands  of  books  in  Ger- 
man and  thousands  of  books  in  French  —  but 
they  showed  the  'last  sweet  thing'  in  the  criti- 
cism of  Dante,  the  last  publications  of  the 
archaeological  societies  of  Italy,  —  books  and 
prints  which  had  been  issued,  well,  let  us  say 
it  among  ourselves,  for  as  dainty  people  as  you 
and  I  are,  for  the  elegant  students  of  Browning 
or  of  mediaeval  times.  They  had  taken  as  good 
care  of  us  in  our  daintiness  as  they  had  taken 
of  the  Canadian  wood-chopper  or  of  the  German 
mechanic.  This  seemed  to  me  rather  a  dis- 
tinguished bit  of  administration.  And  so  I 
might  go  on  to  tell  you  about  other  arrange- 
ments for  charities,  of  their  forelook  in  regard 
to  sanitary  arrangements.  And  when  I  asked 
them  on  the  particular  matter  where  I  was  sent 
for  to  give  counsel  —  how  many  people  they 
had  in  their  Blackwell's  Island  establishments, 
in  their  public  institutions  for  the  poor  —  I 
found  there  was  a  momentary  question  whether 


no  TARRY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

there  were  three  of  these  people  at  that  moment 
in  these  pubhc  institutions,  or  possibly  four ! 

"That  is  so  distinguished  a  condition  of  affairs 
that  I  should  not  dare  tell  the  story^  in  any  social 
science  congress  in  Europe.  It  would  be  set 
down  as  a  Yankee  exaggeration.  People  would 
say  it  was  impossible.  It  is  not  impossible, 
because  the  men  and  women  of  Burlington  have 
known  how  to  give  themselves  to  the  administra- 
tion of  'the  wealth  in  common.'  Among  other 
things,  I  may  say,  in  passing,  that  they  have 
known  how  to  suppress  the  open  bar." 

To  the  reader  at  a  distance,  who  knows  nothing 
of  New  England  life,  it  will  be  as  well  to  say 
that  such  homage  as  I  am  thus  paying  to  Ver- 
mont is  a  homage  to  Local  Government.  What 
in  Vermont  we  call  republican  democracy,  or 
democratic  republicanism,  results  in  such  a 
picture  as  I  have  here  printed  of  Burlington.  It 
is  what  Kropotkin  and  his  friends  would  call 
"anarchy,"  by  which  they  mean  strongly  ac- 
cented local  government  with  no  central  power. 
Given  a  region  of  intelligent  men,  and  men  who 


VERMONT  111 

love  God  and  wish  to  serve  him,  a  region  where 
most  people  live  where  they  have  hved  since 
childhood,  a  region  where  everybody  can  read 
and  write;  and  let  the  people  of  such  a  region 
take  care  of  themselves,  of  their  own  schools, 
their  own  roads,  their  own  poorhouses,  without 
the  interference  of  any  central  authority,  and 
you  come  out  on  the  state  of  Vermont,  or  some- 
thing like  it. 

I  happened  to  be  the  witness  of  a  very  pretty 
little  incident  in  which  some  of  'Hhem  furreners" 
learned  what  it  is  so  hard  for  them  to  learn, 
that  while  you  live  in  a  democracy  you  may  be 
subject  to  Law,  and  that  this  Law  has  a  veiy 
large  L.  It  seems  that  for  some  sorts  of  charcoal 
you  need  some  sorts  of  wood.  For  instance,  if 
you  are  going  to  make  an  annealed  watch  spring, 
you  do  not  use  the  same  charcoal  as  if  you  were 
making  steel  rails  at  ninety-nine  pounds  a  yard. 
So  one  of  the  great  charcoal  burners  of  the  world 
had  bought  a  few  thousand  acres,  more  or  less, 
of  woodland  in  Vermont  to  meet  the  wishes  of 
some   particular   customers.     To   cut   down   the 


112 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


wood  and  burn  it  a  commander  of  Dagoes  had 
brought  up  a  httle  regiment  of  Dagoes,  and  they 
went  to  work.  After  they  had  been  at  work  a 
year  or  more,  there  appeared  the  tax  collector 
of  the  town  with  his  bills  for  the  poll-tax  of  every 
Dago-  among  them.     Now  the  paying  of  taxes  was 

just  one  of  the 
things  which 
the  Dago  had 
meant  to  avoid 
by  leaving 
the  beneficent 
reign  of  King 
Victor  Emman- 
uel, or  whoever 
it  was.  So  they 
said  when  the 

Samuel  de  Champlain.  taX    bills    Came 

in  that  they  would  be  hanged  if  they  would  pay 
them.  I  am  not  sure  but  that  they  used  ex- 
pressions more  theological.  To  them  the  tax 
collector  merely  replied,  very  much  to  their  sur- 
prise, that  if  they  did  not  pay  them,  the  whole 


VERMONT  113 

army  of  Vermont  would  appear  if  necessary  on 
the  scene,  and  they  would  all  be  sent  to  prison. 

I  tell  this  story  l^ecause  it  was  a  perfect  eye- 
opener  to  these  Dagoes.  The  man  who  moved 
them  to  and  fro,  as  you  move  chessmen  on  a 
board;  said  that  he  would  do  whatever  the 
Consul  General  of  Italy  in  the  city  of  New  York 
said  he  must  do.  Observe,  and  this  is  the  in- 
teresting point  with  me,  the  way  in  which  the 
Celt  steadily  holds  to  his  disposition  to  be  gov- 
erned by  a  Boss.  Somebody  went  down  to  New 
York ;  the  Consul  General  was  no  fool,  and  he  told 
them  they  must  pay  their  poll-taxes  and  they 
paid  them.  They  got  their  first  lesson  as  to  the 
strength  of  a  Democratic  Republic. 

In  old  days  the  annual  session  of  the  legisla- 
ture ranged  from  three  days  to  ten.  But  I  am 
told  now  the  legislature  meets  only  on  alternate 
years.  It  meets  in  the  early  part  of  September 
and  usually  sits  till  the  last  of  November.  I  had 
the  pleasure  of  meeting  one  of  Vermont's  gov- 
ernors once  for  a  few  days  at  a  hotel  in  western 
North  Carolina.     Every  morning  at  breakfast  he 


114      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

brought  in  the  business  of  the  state  of  Vermont 
in  an  envelope  in  which  he  had  received  it  from 
the  secretary  of  state,  and  the  heutenant- 
governor.  The  whole  of  it  could  be  transmitted 
for  four  cents'  worth  of  postage.  This  governor, 
if  the  Philistines  want  to  know,  had  a  salary  of  a 
thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  if  it  were  necessary 
for  his  wife's  health  or  fo^'  his  own  studies  that 
he  should  spend  a  month  in  western  North 
Carolina,  why,  he  could  do  so,  leaving  details 
to  the  lieutenant-governor.  What  this  gentle- 
man needed  to  consult  the  governor  about  could 
be  transacted,  as  I  saw,  through  the  Post  Office. 
Happy  is  that  people  whose  history  is  not  written  ! 
Happy  is  that  people  whose  legislative  sessions 
are  few  and  short !  Happy  i»  that  state  which 
always  votes  the  Republican  ticket !  They  in- 
vented a  new  motto  for  their  state  some  fifty 
years  ago,  "The  star  which  never  sets."  This 
means  that  from  the  beginning  they  never  gave 
in  to  the  Southern  Oligarchy  in  any  matter  of 
form  or  of  principle. 
There  are  many,  many  ways  to  see  Vermont. 


116 


VERMONT  117 

There  are  many,  many  pleasant  places  to  visit 
in  Vermont.  Go,  if  you  please,  to  Atherton, 
an  imaginary  town  which  I  invented  for  my 
unread  novel,  ''Sybil  Ivnox."  For  myself,  I 
never  enjoyed  life  more  than  I  did  when,  in  1864, 
I  started  with  my  haversack  from  the  mouth  of 
the  Ashuelot  River  and  walked  across  to  Burling- 
ton and  Lake  Champlain.  I  could  make  a  book 
about  my  memories  of  that  walk,  of  the  persons 
who  joined  me,  of  the  scenery,  and  of  the  glorious 
prosperity  of  the  free  people. 

The  earliest  history  of  Vermont  carries  us 
back  to  the  very  beginning  of  the  seventeenth 
century. 

When  Champlain  was  doing  his  best  to  get 
through  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  he  discovered  the 
lake  which  bears  his  name.  Somewhere  at  the 
southern  end  of  that  lake  he  and  the  Indians 
who  escorted  him  had  a  skirmish  with  some 
other  Indians  who  were  perhaps  Iroquois.  It  is 
not  possible  to  place  the  incident  of  these  early 
adventures  of  his. 

The  state  as  we  found  of  New  Hampshire  has  ai 


118 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


Revolutionary  history  which  is  well  worth  follow- 
ing;  of  those  who  are  remembered,  and  as  the 

Book  of  Ecclesias- 
ticus  says,  of  those 
others  who  were 
not  remembered. 

Let  me  tell  the 
story  of  one  Ver- 
mont battle-field, 
because  it  brings 
in  the  pathetic 
story  of  one  of  my 
own  kinsmen,  and 
"^-W^    '  these   chapters  are 

^  r.  c         ^  chapters   not  only 

Brigadier-General     Simon     Fraser,  '■  ^ 

Lieutenant-Colonel   of   the    24th     q^     dHcCS      but     of 
Foot.  ^ 

1729-1777.  persons.      This    is 

(General  Fraser  commanded  the  British      ,  i  ,     ^  P     +V. 

forces  at  the  battle  of  Hubbardton.)         ^^^     StOiy     01      tnc 

Nathan  Hale  who 
was  taken  prisoner  by  Burgoyne's  land  forces  at 
Hubbardton. 

The  Massachusetts  contingent  had  been  hurried 
up  to  meet  Burgoyne.     John  Stark,  who  was  a 


VERMONT  119 

sort  of  Agamemnon  sulking  in  his  tent,  was  bring- 
ing up  the  New  Hampshire  miUtia,  and  he  even- 
tually commanded  at  Bennington.  But  the  force 
which  practically  met  Burgojue  was  a  force  of 
militia  who  were  entirely  outnumbered.  They 
knew  as  much  of  military  tactics  as  the  reader  of 
these  words  knows,  perhaps  a  little  more.  But 
they  knew  how  to  fight,  and  they  knew  how  to  cUe. 
The  Earl  of  Balcarras  and  Burgoyne,  in  their 
testimony  before  the  House  of  Lords,  spoke  with 
admiration  of  the  gallant  behavior  of  these  men 
at  Hubbardton.  They  were  entirely  outnumbered 
in  that  fight,  but  they  did  not  retire  till  an  action 
so  severe  that  the  English  lost  one  hundred  and 
fifty  men.  There  is  not  a  bit  of  Revolutionary 
reading  more  interesting  than  Burgoyne's  state- 
ment as  to  the  spirit  with  which  these  men  en- 
gaged. In  his  testimony  before  the  House  of  Lords 
he  makes  occasion  to  say  that  any  critic  who 
thought  that  his  antagonists  were  a  horde  of  inex- 
perienced peasants  were  greatly  mistaken.  He  begs 
that  it  may  be  understood  that  he  acted  against 
soldiers  who  showed  great  spirit  and  courage. 


120 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


In  1777  the  king's  government  in  England 
was  fully  satisfied  that  Burgoyne's  expedition 
was  to  cut  the  rebel  forces  in  two  by  his  march 
from  Montreal  to  New  York ;  to  leave  New  Eng- 
land out  in  the  cold,  and  so  to  end  the  rebellion. 


1 

HI^^^E 

1^^^ 

^^^ 

•     ^^^M 

L  ^ 

m         ^^^ 

\                ^^P 

^JSCm|  '^JBJ^I 

*^: 

m 

^W 

4!f;;p^.^x.-i""- 

^iSii'fflCfflSfcMi 

^hsii-^^^mm 

;:O^Bl^ 

v/.^^.:,.  ..  ;".'"-4';:,:-' 

Ruixs  OF  Fort  Ticoxderoga. 

Burgoyne  had  everything  given  to  him  which  he 
wanted.  Carleton,  afterwards  Lord  Dorchester, 
had  very  nearly  cleared  Canada  of  the  Rebel 
invasion  in  1776;  and  Burgoyne  advanced  south- 
ward in  a  short  triumph  over  Lake  Champlain. 


VERMONT  121 

Hessians  and  English  arrived  at  Ticonderoga  at 
the  southern  end  of  the  lake  with  no  formidable 
naval  opposition.  It  is  then  that  the  colors  of 
England  and  Brunswick  and  Hesse 

"  In  triumph  vain 
Gay  flaunted  over  blue  Champlain." 

Millions  had  been  spent  on  Fort  Ticonderoga 
in  one  or  another  generation.  To  this  hour  the 
''ruins"  are  more  like  the  ruins  we  read  about 
than  anything  else  which  can  be  seen  in  the 
northern  states  of  America.  It  was  considered  a 
great  point  of  success  when  in  1775  Ethan  Allen 
had  surprised  Ticonderoga  and  taken  it  for  the 
colonies  in  the  name  of  ''Jehovah  and  the  Con- 
tinental Congress."  When  Burgoyne  advanced, 
this  fort  was  held  by  St.  Clair  for  the  Americans. 
It  was  a  great  disappointment  to  everybody 
when  Burgoyne,  by  what  seems  to  have  been  a 
surprise  to  St.  Clair,  planted  his  guns  on  Mount 
Defiance,  which  had  been  supposed  inaccessible, 
and  without  firing  a  shot  compelled  St.  Clair's 
garrison  to  retire.  He  could  not  ask  for  a  more 
auspicious  beginning  of  his  invasion. 


122      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

There  is  something  very  fine,  I  say,  —  it  is  what 
we  call  soldier-like,  —  in  his  narrative  in  the 
credit  he  gives  to  the  spirit  and  discipline  of 
the  retreating  force  as  it  retired  southward 
from  Ticonderoga.  A  hundred  and  thirty  years 
later  it  is  worth  while  to  contrast  it  with  the 
unfair  impression  given  at  the  time  in  New  Eng- 
land. Because  the  Americans  retreated,  it  was, 
perhaps,  the  habit  of  our  people  to  say  they  ran 
away. 

In  fact,  at  the  battle  of  Hubbardton,  with 
two  thousand  men  they  engaged,  according  to 
Burgoyne's  account,  the  advanced  guard  of 
the  whole  English  army.  Burgoyne  says  that 
they  left  dead  on  the  field  Colonel  Francis  and 
many  other  officers,  with  upwards  of  two  hundred 
men,  —  that  they  lost  six  hundred  in  wounded. 
They  lost  also  one  colonel,  seven  captains,  and 
two  hundred  and  twenty  other  prisoners.  It 
seems  to  me  really  pathetic  that  as  well-fought  a 
battle  as  this  should  appear  in  the  popular  notion 
of  that  time  as  a  disgraceful  retreat. 

Nathan  Hale,  the  colonel  of  one  of  the  regi- 


123 


VERMONT  125 

ments,  was  taken  prisoner.  Burgoyne  paroled 
him  for  two  years  which  expired  in  1779,  when 
he  loyally  went  to  New  York  and  surrendered 
himself  on  his  parole.  He  died  at  New  Utrecht, 
Long  Island,  just  thirty-seven  years  old,  three 
years  after  his  cousin  Nathan  Hale,  a  Connecti- 
cut cousin,  who  was  hanged  in  disgrace  by  Gen- 
eral Howe,  whose  people  had  arrested  him  a  few 
days  before.  This  Captain  Nathan  Hale  was 
hanged  at  the  corner  of  the  little  park  near 
Broadway.  The  disgrace  of  his  being  hanged 
res-ted  on  the  whole  Connecticut  household 
from  which  he  came.  The  method  of  his  death 
was  what  they  grieved  for.  My  o\\ti  father, 
who  bore  his  uncle's  name,  was  forbidden  to 
speak  of  him  to  his  father,  because  the  whole 
was  so  painful.  His  one  request  when  he  was 
told  that  he  must  die  was  that  he  might  be 
shot  and  not  hanged.  But  now  one  of  these 
Nathan  Hales  is  remembered.  There  is  a  statue 
to  him  on  Broadway.  I  stop  to  read  the  inscrip- 
tion every  time  I  pass  there:  ''I  am  sorry  that 
I  have  but  one  life  to  give  to  my  country;" 


126      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

and  I  have  never  stopped  there  but  some  news- 
boy was  at  my  side  reading  the  same  inscription. 
And  the  other  of  those  Nathan  Hales  was  never, 
I  think,  heard  of  by  the  reader  of  these  Hnes  till 
he  reads  them  now.  So  far  as  fame  goes,  one 
of  the  two  was  taken  and  the  other  left,  and  the 
one  who  was  taken  was  the  one  who  thought  he 
might  be  disgraced  by  the  manner  of  his  death. 
The  dates  are  these :  — 

General  St.  Clair  abandoned  Ticonderoga,  6th  of  July, 
1777. 

Battle  of  Hubbardton,  7th  of  July,  1777. 
Battle  of  Bennington,  August  16,  1777. 
Battle  of  Saratoga,  19th  of  September,  1777. 
Surrender  at  Saratoga,  17th  of  October,  1777. 

In  writing  about  New  Hampshire  I  spoke  of  the 
battle  of  Bennington  as  belonging  with  Burgojnie's 
defeat  at  Saratoga.  Colonel  Creasy  spoke  of  that 
as  one  of  the  fifteen  decisive  battles  of  the  world. 
Bennington  was  in  what  was  called  the  Hamp- 
shire Grants,  which  so  soon  declared  their  own 
independence  and  made  Vermont  a  state  which 
joined  the  old  Thirteen  when  she  chose. 


VERMONT 


127 


Senator  Hoar  used  to  tell  a  fine  story  of  his 
first  visit  to  Bennington.  He  made  some  mistake 
in  leaving  his  hotel  to  go  to  see  the  monument 
on    the    battle-ground.     But    he    fell    in  with  a 


Alexander  ]SLa.comb,  Major-Geneeal  U.  S.  A. 
From    an  engraving   by  J.  B.  Longacre  of  the  painting  by  T.  Sully. 

httle  bo}^  who  became  his  guide.  Hoar  asked 
him  some  questions  about  the  battle,  and  the 
boy  was  somewhat  confused  in  his  answers. 
He   acknowledged   that    he   was    not    perfectly 


128     TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

informed,  saying,  ' '  What  I  know  is  that  the  Ben- 
ningtons  beat."  The  actual  battle-ground  was 
on  the  New  York  side  of  the  state  line. 

There  is  another  feather  in  the  cap  of  Vermont, 
which  her  own  people  prize  perhaps,  but  outside 
her  owTi  borders  it  is  not  referred  to  so  often  as 
is  that  battle  where  the  ' '  Benningtons  beat." 
This  feather  was  won  the  day  of  the  double  bat- 
tle of  Plattsburg,  in  1814,  when  General  Macomb 
with  his  little  army  drove  back  Sir  George  Prevost 
with  the  English  army,  and  when  McDonough, 
only  thirty  years  old,  with  the  American  fleet, 
sank  or  drove  back  the  English  fleet.  That 
was  one  of  the  battles  of  ship-builders,  as  some- 
body calls  them  —  Henry  Adams,  I  think  —  when 
the  ciuestion  was,  which  nation  could  get  a  ship 
to  sea  before  the  other.  McDonough's  fleet  went 
out  almost  as  ^Eneas's  went  out  from  Carthage, 
with  the  green  leaves  growing  on  the  end  of 
their  spars.  Macomb's  army  was  made  up  of 
such  soldiers  as  he  found.  He  had  fifteen  hun- 
dred "effectives,"  by  which  he  means  soldiers 
enlisted  by  the  United  States.     McDonough  did 


VERMONT 


129 


sink  the  great  part  of  the  EngHsh  fleet,  and  drove 
the  rest  northward.  On  shore  the  Enghsh  troops, 
before  they  made  their  main  attack,  heard  the 
cheering  of  their  American  enemy  on  account  of 


Captain  Thujias  McDonuugh. 
From  au  engraving  by  J.  B.  Forrest  after  a  painting  by  J.  W.  Jarvis. 

the  defeat  of  the  fleet,  and  so  retreated  —  a  re- 
treat wliicli  went  as  far  as  Canada.  Of  course 
the  repulse  was  appreciated  at  the  time,  when, 
indeed,  it  was  greatly  needed  in  America,  for 


130      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

the  capture  of  the  city  of  Washington  by  Ross's 
army  had  taken  place  about  a  fortnight  before. 
The  effect  of  this  repulse  in  England  was  practi- 
cally that  it  ended  the  war. 

The  Ministry  asked  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
to  come  over  to  America  and  to  take  the  com- 
mand. His  answer  is  a  very  interesting  letter, 
showing  that  he  understood  the  condition  more 
completely  than  some  of  those  people  who  called 
themselves  'Hhe  Government." 

''Had  any  considerations  of  personal  glory 
.  .  .  induced  me  to  pursue  those  offensive  opera- 
tions by  land,  independently  of  the  fleet,  which 
it  would  appear  were  expected  of  me,"  the  re- 
sults would  have  been  disastrous,  he  says.  Such 
operations  have  been  attempted  before  on  the 
same  ground.  And  twenty-five  years  later  he 
said  that  he  ''thought  he  sent  them  some  of  his 
best  troops  from  Bordeaux,  but  they  did  not 
turn  out  quite  right.  They  wanted  this  iron 
fist  to  command  them,"  Condensing  his  various 
despatches  declining  to  come  over  here  and  as- 
sume the  command,  it  appears  that  we  should 


VERMONT"  131 

consider  that  the  critical  battle  of  the  whole  con- 
cern was  that  in  which  McDonough  and  Macomb 
took  command  at  Plattsburg.  Observe  the  Mac 
in  the  name  of  the  two  commanders;  and  young 
men  may  as  well  observe  that  the  sailor  was 
thirty  years  old  and  the  general  was  thirty-two 
years  old.  This  reminds  us  of  the  young  men  of 
the  Revolution. 

Students  and  people  who  care  for  history,  and 
people  who  care  for  the  English  language,  and 
people  who  are  glad  that  the  United  States  is 
a  nation,  will  not  forget  that  George  Perkins 
Marsh  was  a  Vermonter,  a  man  who  rendered 
very  great  service  to  us  all.  He  was  very  kind 
to  me  when  I  was  a  mere  boy,  and  honored  me 
by  his  correspondence  till  he  died.  And  there 
is  no  better  illustration  than  the  statement  of 
his  career  of  the  healthy  and  hearty  results 
when  you  trust  a  nation  to  the  insight  and 
foresight  of  Democracy.  In  the  old  days  of 
Southern  supremacy,  Vermont  voted  alone  every 
year  for  the  rule  of  free  men  in  the  nation, 
without  what  the  politicians  would  call  ''reward." 


132     TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

She  was  the  ''star  that  never  sets."     But  when 
General  Taylor  came  in,  and  for  a  few  years  the 


George  Perkins  Marsh. 
From  the  portrait  by  Healey  painted  in  1845. 

men  of  business  at  the  North  ruled  the  land  in 
place  of  the  poUticians  of  the  South,  it  was 
thought  at  Washington  that  Vermont  should  be 


VERMONT  133 

''rewarded/'  and  they  asked  her  representative, 
George  Perkins  Marsh,  if  he  would  accept  a 
foreign  mission. 

Now,  it  happened  that  Marsh  had  been  all 
his  Hfe  studying  the  languages,  the  scenes,  and 
the  legends  of  northern  Europe,  and  his  friends 
intimated  that  it  would  be  agreeable  to  him  to 
represent  this  country  at  Copenhagen.  Recol- 
lect that  all  this  about  Vinland  and  Thorfinn 
and  Thorvald  and  the  rest  had  just  come  to 
light.  But  the  new  government  could  not  send 
him  to  Copenhagen,  but  said  that  they  would 
send  him  to  Constantinople.  Scandinavian  or 
Semitic  —  what  difference  did  that  make  as  the 
dice-box  of  patronage  threw  out  its  six  or  its  five  ! 
iVnd  indeed  that  happened,  if  anything  happens, 
that  this  master  of  Northern  hterature  took  in 
as  a  matter  of  course  the  Oriental  questions  and 
added  the  treasures  of  the  East  to  the  stock 
which  seemed  ample  before.  His  philological 
learning  gave  him  preeminence  in  the  great 
diplomatic  circle  of  Constantinople. 

He    afterwards    travelled    in    the    north    of 


134 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


Europe;  he  spent  many  years  in  Italy,  to  the 
great  advantage  of  us  all,  and  in  philological  mat- 
ters which  relate  to  our  own  language  he  is  one 


Mrs.  George  Perkins  Marsh. 


of  the  great  leaders.  But  I  do  not  like  to  speak 
of  him  without  speaking  of  his  charming  wife,  who 
made  additions  not  to  be  forgotten  to  the  htera- 
ture  of  the  century. 


VERMONT  135 

I  think  that  the  young  men  and  young  women 
of  Vermont  who  want  a  college  training  are  apt 
to  go  to  their  own  colleges,  Burlington  and 
Middlebury,  and  that  they  are  wise  in  doing  so. 
I  dare  not  go  into  the  successes  of  Vermont's 
sons  and  daughters  in  literature.  Everybody 
remembers,  not  to  speak  of  persons  now  living 
in  this  country  whose  names  and  work  we  read 
every  day,  Saxe,  and  the  Stevenses,  Henry  and 
Benjamin  Franklin,  to  whom  we  owe  inestimable 
contributions  to  American  history.  Vermont 
adopted  Mr.  Kipling,  though  he  has  run  away 
from  us  for  the  moment. 

Take  care,  while  you  are  in  Vermont,  to  see  the 
great  Proctor  marble  quarries.  There  is  a  town  of 
Proctor,  where  some  of  them  are.  But  I  do  not 
know  how  far  their  marvellous  enterprise  ex- 
tends. I  do  know  that  Richard  Greenough  told 
me  that  the  statuary  marble  of  Vermont  was 
equal  to  any  in  the  world.  And  I  think  one  or 
two  of  his  best  works  preserve  the  memory  of 
—  what  shall  I  say?  —  the  blush  or  the  sunset 
hue  which  just  redeems  the  pure  white  from  chill. 


136 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


Senator   Proctor's  service   to  the   country  when 
the  Cuban  war  began  will  never  be  forgotten. 

And  if  you  visit  him  this  summer,  let  him 
know  that  you  remember  that  Vermont  gave 
the  Morgan  horse  to  the  country.  For  the 
senator  has  highly  determined  that  that  race 
of  horses  shall  not  die  out  from  the  land. 


v^^ 


The  State  House. 
'  What  Dr.  Holmes  audaciously  called  the  '  hub  of  the  Universe.'  " 
188 


CHAPTER  V 
MASSACHUSETTS 

A  YEAR  or  two  before  Champlain  was  discover- 
ing Bar  Harbor  and  Lake  Champlain,  the  Earl 
of  Southampton,  whom  the 
reader  and  I  ought  to  love, 
sent  a  Captain  named  Gosnold 
to  discover  our  dear  New  Eng- 
land. For  the  young  noblemen 
of  Queen  Elizabeth's  time  were 
an  enterprising  and  adventu- 
rous set.  They  meant  to  beat 
the  devil  by  checkmating 
Spain,  and  they  thought  a  good 
way  to  checkmate  Spain  and 
the  devil  would  be  to  plant 
Protestant  colonies  in  North  America.  So  the 
Earl  of  Southampton  sent  out  Gosnold  in  a  ship 
of  happy  omen,  for  she  was  called  the  Concord. 

139 


PiNE-TKEE   Shilling. 


140 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


And  Gosnold  came  up  cand  saw  our  dear  old 
Boston,  And  he  sailed  round  Cape  Cod,  which 
people  once  called  Cape  Gosnold,  in  memoiy  of 

him.  And  he 
discovered  the 
Elizabeth  Isl- 
ands, at  the 
mouth  of  Buz- 
zards Bay, 
where  the  dear 
old  Common- 
wealth of  Mas- 
sachusetts is 
establishing  a 
leper  hospital 
to-day.  Put 
that  on  record 
because  it  is  our 
way  of  acting  on 
the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  and  showing  that  we  build  upon  a 
rock.  And  on  the  Island  of  Cuttyhunk,  the 
most  southerly  of  the  Elizabeth  Islands,  Gosnold 


Hkxry   Wkiothesley,   Third  Earl  of 
Southampton. 


MASSACHUSETTS  141 

and  his  men  established  the  first  colony  on  the 
North  Atlantic  shore  of  the  United  States. 
Raleigh  had  tried  before  him,  on  Roanoke 
Island,  where  Virginia  Dare  was  born. 

I  think  Gosnold's  colony  lasted  seven  weeks. 
The  ruins  of  the  storehouse  are  there  to  this  day, 
with  the  monument  which  tells  the  tale.  If 
you  want  to  read  the  history,  take  down  the 
''Tempest"  and  read  of  Caliban  and  mussels  in 
the  brooks  and  sassafras  logs  and  seamews  and 
quarrels  between  sailors  and  gentlemen.  That 
is  exactly  the  story  of  what  happened  in  Gos- 
nold's seven  weeks. 

And  at  the  end  of  the  seven  weeks,  no  one  would 
stay  there,  and  they  all  went  back  to  London. 
And  they  hustled  up  to  the  Earl  of  Southamp- 
ton's palace  and  told  their  stor}^  of  quarrel,  of 
tempest,  of  seamews,  and  of  logs. 

And  according  to  me,  one  William  Shake- 
speare, who  was  the  friend  and  companion  of 
the  Earl  of  Southampton,  used  to  sit  in  the  great 
hall  of  the  palace  and  hear  these  stories.  And 
according  to  me  he  was  writing  the  ''Tempest" 


142      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

then  and  brought  these  stories  in.  So  is  it  that 
the  mise  en  scene  of  the  ^'Tempest"  is  not  that  of 
the  West  Indies  or  of  Bermuda  where  there  are 
no  brooks^  nor  flying  squirrels,  nor  mussels  in 
the  brook  nor  sassafras  logs,  but  is  a  copy  of 
Cuttyhunk,  as  Gosnold  and  his  sailors  found  it. 
So  is  it  that  Miranda,  God  bless  her !  is  a  Mas- 
sachusetts girl. 

Probably  no  one  in  the  world  accepts  this 
criticism  on  Shakespeare  excepting  me.  But 
I  do  accept  it,  and  this  reader  had  better  accept 
it,  for  it  will  be  the  received  comment  in  the 
year  1950. 

It  has  been  said  already  in  these  papers  that 
if  you  want  to  know  anything,  you  had  better 
go  and  see  it  yourself.  That  is  their  text.  Per- 
sonal presence  moves  the  world,  as  my  dear  old 
friend  Eli  Thayer  either  said  or  did  not  say.  I 
have  always  referred  the  remark  to  him  because 
he  lived  up  to  its  principle.  This  is  true,  that 
you  remember  what  you  have  seen  as  you  do 
not  remember  so  well  what  you  hear,  as  I  think 
Horace  says  before  me. 


^^^^\\^;^>vt^U. 


143 


MASSACHUSETTS  145 

So  it  is  that  I  shall  find  myself  advising  this 
gentle  reader  to  see  Massachusetts  as  I  have  seen 
it.  It  is  as  a  spider  living  on  the  hub  of  liis 
wheel  adventures  out  upon  this  spoke,  upon  that, 
or  upon  another.  Here  am  I,  l^orn  on  the  slope 
of  Beacon  Hill,  if  you  please;  or  as  old  writers 
would  have  said,  ''as  the  roadway  goes  dov.ii 
from  Sherburne's  to  the  water."  Now  just  above 
the  place  where  I  was  born,  not  half  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  away,  is  the  State  House  of  Massachu- 
setts with  a  gold  pineapple  upon  the  top.  This 
is  what  Dr.  Holmes  audaciously  called  the  ''hub 
of  the  Universe,"  and  the  Boston  people  to  this 
hour  chuckle  because  he  said  it,  thinking  in  their 
own  hearts,  dear  souls,  that  it  is  true. 

What  is  curious  is  that  by  great  good  fortune 
the  Capitol  of  Massachusetts  is  so  placed  that 
within  five  miles  of  this  pineapple  is  the  statistical 
centre,  census  after  census,  of  the  population  of 
the  state.  There  are  so  many  more  people  in 
those  great  manufacturing  towns  which  have 
to  keep  in  close  touch  with  the  seaboard  that 
when  the  statistical  people  do  their  best  to  find 


146 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


a  mathematical  centre  for  all  these  hundreds 
of  thousands,  it  proves  that  the  State  House  has 
put  itself  within  a  few  miles  of  that  centre. 

For  me,  since  in  this  chapter  I  am  to  talk  more 
or  less  about  myself,  birth  in  Boston  meant 
radiation     in    one    direction    or    another.      My 

father  saw  very  soon 
that  the  great  canal 
system  of  New  York 
and  the  states  to  the 
south  and  westward 
could  not  be  made  to 
work  in  New  England, 
though  many  people 
thought  it  could.  He 
''caught  on"  to  the 
railway  system  invented  in  England,  and  while 
people  thought  he  was  crazy,  he  foresaw  lines 
of  it  in  his  own  state.  It  nmst  have  been  in 
1826  that,  as  I  sat,  a  little  boy  four  years  old, 
on  a  little  jtIIow  box  provided  for  me  in  his 
''chaise,"  he  took  my  mother  out  with  her  little 
boy  sitting  thus  at   their  feet,  and  we   came  to 


Qi;iNCY  Railway  Pitcheu. 
(See  List  of  Illustrations.) 


MASSACHUSETTS 


147 


the  line  of  the  Quincy  Raihvay,  the  first  railway 
built  in  the  United  States.  He  gave  her  the 
reins;  he  alighted  from  the  chaise;  he  struck 
the  flat  iron  rail  with  his  foot  to  see  how  closely 
it  was  spiked  on 
the  timber  below; 
he  returned  into 
the  chaise  and  ex- 
plained to  me  what 
the  railway  was. 
This  is  one  of  the 
fu^t  memories  of 
my  life. 

From  that  time 
nearly  to  his  death  problems  of  engineering  occu- 
pied him  as  they  referred  to  railroads  or  to  water 
supply.  When  I  write  my  successful  novel,  and 
The  Outlook  relieves  its  bank  account  i)y  sending 
me  a  check  for  half  a  year's  royalties,  I  am  going 
to  ask  Macmonnies  to  make  an  equestrian  statue 
of  my  father  with  his  binocular  in  his  hand. 
This  statue  is  to  be  placed  without  other  ped- 
estal   on    a    rock    which    is    half   porphyry,    in 


The  Stourbridge  Liox,  the  First 
Locomotive  m  AiiERicA  (1829). 


148 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


Welloslcy,  Massachusetts.  For  this  rock  parts 
the  Boston  and  Worcester  Raih-oad,  which  he 
built,  from  the  great  Cochituate  water-pij^es,  which 
he  hiid  there  to  give  hfe  to  Boston. 

As  the  surveys  for  the  raih'oad  began,  and  as 
they  went   westward,    I   and  my   older   brother 


The  Veazie  Railroad,  Bangor,  Maine  (1836). 

Nathan,  who  explained  all  things  in  life  to  me, 
were  apt  to  be  out  with  the  parties  of  engineers 
an3^where  between  Boston  and  Worcester.  Among 
other  things,  those  years  meant  for  us  and  my 
tw^o  sisters  that  we  used  to  color  maps  of  eastern 
Massachusetts  so  that  the  townships  might  be 
clearly  distinguished. 

In  that  household  we  w^ere  a  unit;   wdiere  one 


MASSACHUSETTS  149 

went  all  went,  and  so  the  year  I  was  four  years 
old  we  all  went  down  to  Cape  Cod.  A  year  or  two 
afterwards,  in  a  great  open  barouche,  we  all 
circumnavigated  Cape  Ann,  Fullum  driving  with 
the  assistance  of  myself  and  my  brother.  One 
of  those  hot  summers  we  went  on  the  canal-boat 
General  Sullivan  to  Lowell,  taking  only  a  day 
for  the  journey,  which  now  requires  forty-five 
minutes.  On  that  day  I  saw  my  first  tadpole, 
and  my  mother  put  him  into  her  thimble.  Joy 
of  joys,  in  just  such  a  l^arouche,  as  soon  as  the 
school  vacation  came  round,  every  year  if  possible, 
we  were  all  taken  to  the  family  altar  at  West- 
hampton,  where  my  father  was  born,  a  journey 
of  nearly  three  days,  the  route  varying  as  he  liked 
to  trace  one  valley  or  another.  So  soon  as  rail- 
roads were  built  of  course  we  went  everywhere 
upon  them.  And  so  it  is  that  when  I  read  the 
other  day  that  a  man  had  been  in  every  town- 
ship of  Massachusetts,  I  wondered  why  even  I  had 
not  been  in  every  township  of  Massachusetts,  not 
on  a  bicycle,  as  he  went,  but  mostly  in  these  ear- 
lier expeditions. 


150  TARRY   AT   HOME   TRAV^ELS 

I  first  settled  down  in  life  in  Worcester,  which 
with  good  reason  calls  itself  the  heart  of  the 
Commonwealth.     The  seal  of  the  city  is  a  heart, 


because  the  people  there  are  fond  of  this  name. 
Now  Worcester  is  another  excellent  radiating 
point.     You  can  take  your  friend  in  your  buggy 


MASSACHUSETTS 


151 


early  in  an  afternoon,  and  you  can  cross  waters 
which  flow  into  the  Merrimac  on  the  north,  into 
Narragansett  Bay  and  the  Thames  River  on  the 


John  Adams. 


south,  into  the  Connecticut  on  the  west,  and  return 
to  your  Worcester  home  before  supper. 

The  old  township  system  of  New  England  holds. 
There  is  great  pride  in  almost  every  one  of  these 


152      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

little  commonwealths,  more  than  three  hundred 
in  number.  They  have  great  pride  in  their  lo- 
cality. No  one  can  do  them  more  good  than  by 
nursing  this  pride  and  trying  to  make  it  eternal. 
Go  to  Westboro,  and  they  will  tell  you  that 
Eli  Whitney  was  born  here,  who  revolutionized 
the  industries  of  America.  Go  to  Northampton, 
where  they  will  tell  you  that  Jonathan  Edwards 
preached  there,  and  will  or  will  not  tell  you  that 
they  turned  him  out.  Just  now  twelve  hundred 
young  women  make  their  home  at  Smith  Col- 
lege there.  Go  to  Springfield,  and  you  will  hear 
that  Springfield  is  the  place  where  our  National 
Government  revolutionized  for  the  world  the  busi- 
ness of  the  manufacture  of  small  arms.  Go  to 
Quincy,  and,  besides  the  railway  referred  to  above, 
they  will  show  you  the  birthplace  of  John  Adams, 
who  practically  wrote  the  constitutions  of  al- 
most all  the  old  Thirteen  States.  His  home 
was  called  Braintree  then.  Go  to  Amesbury; 
it  was  Whittier's  home.  Go  down  the  river  to 
Byfield,  and  here  was  the  first  woollen  manufac- 
tory  in   America.     Go   to   Cambridge,   and   you 


153 


MASSACHUSETTS  155 

see  the  statue  of  the  first  printer.  Go  to 
WiUiamstown,  and  here  was  Mark  Hopkins's 
slab  throne,  as  Garfield  described  it,  and  here 
was  a  celebrated  haycock.  Go  to  Easton ;  they 
will  tell  you  that  their  axes  are  in  the  hands  of 
men  blacker  than  any  you  ever  saw,  under  the 
equator  in  Africa.  Go  to  Nantucket,  and  they 
say  that  Burke  was  talking  about  them  when  he 
told  the  House  of  Commons  whom  he  envied. 
Go  to  Sheffield,  and  they  say  Orville  Dewey 
was  born  here.  Go  to  Pittsfield,  and  they  say 
Henry  Dawes  lived  here.  Go  to  Sturbridge, 
and  they  say  here  was  the  first  mine  wrought 
in  the  United  States,  which  has  been  kept  in 
operation  until  now.  Go  to  Gloucester,  and  they 
say  Massachusetts  pays  for  all  her  breadstuffs 
with  the  fish  she  draws  out  of  the  sea.  Plymouth, 
Concord,  Lexington,  Bunker  Hill  —  ^Ir.  Webster 
says  the  world  knows  the  history  by  heart.  Go 
to  Worcester,  and  they  will  tell  you  where  Senator 
Hoar  lived.  Go  to  Wrentham,  Helen  Keller 
lives  there.  Go  to  Natick,  or  Xewton,  and  in 
each  of   those  towns  people  will  tell   you   that 


156 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


John  Eliot  first  preached  to  the  Indians  there. 
Go  to  Marshfield,  and  it  is  where  Daniel  Web- 
ster lived  and  died.     Go   to   Beverly,  here  was 


John  Eliot  preaching  to  the  Indians. 

the  first  cotton  manufacture  in  America.  Go 
to  Newburyport,  John  Lowell  lived  here,  the 
great  Emancipator.  Go  to  Concord,  and  hear 
about    Emerson    and    Hawthorne. .    And    so   on 


MASSACHUSETTS  157 

and  so  on,  with  hundreds  of  other  phices  and 
men. 

I  have  just  named  Smith  College  with  its 
twelve  hundred  pupils.  Whoever  is  thoroughly 
interested  in  the  education  of  women  ought  to 
visit  Smith  College  in  Northampton,  to  cross  the 
river  and  to  see  Mount  Holyoke  College  in  Had- 
ley,  of  which  the  Campus,  if  one  is  to  call  it  so, 
is  really  matchless.  Take  care  also  that  you  see 
Wellesley  College,  under  Miss  Hazard,  at  Wellesley. 

I  have  already  named  Williams  College,  which 
has  done  and  is  doing  and  will  do  so  much  for 
the  highest  education  of  young  men.  When 
Amherst  College  was  born,  now  the  better  part  of 
a  century  ago,  I  think  there  was  supposed  to 
be  some  antagonism  in  the  rivalry  between  this 
new  broom  and  the  older  college  in  Berkshire. 
But  it  is  apparent  long  ago  that  the  founders 
builded  better  than  they  knew,  and  that  there 
is  ample  room  for  them  both,  even  though  Dart- 
mouth College  is  not  so  far  away.  The  truth 
is  that  the  country  is  beginning  to  find  out 
that   the   higher  education  is   in   no   sort  what 


158 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


the  French  call  it,  secondary  education.  And 
happily  the  more  and  better  we  provide,  the 
number  of  students  who  mean  to  profit  by 
this  advantage   increases  in  a  larger  proportion. 


Ralph  Waldo  Emersox. 


But  when  you  speak  of  colleges,  I  like  to  put 
in  this  little  bit  of  statistics.  I  was  in  a  great 
central  high  school  building  of  one  of  our  manu- 


MASSACHUSETTS  159 

facturing  towns  a  year  or  two  ago,  and  I  said  to 
the  superintendent  of  education  there  that  when 
I  was  in  college  at  Cambridge,  Harvard  College 
had  no  building  which  would  compare  with  that. 
He  told  me  that  thirteen  of  the  cities  of  Massa- 
chusetts had  provided  for  their  public  school 
service  buildings  which  would  quite  equal  that 
in  which  we  stood.  There  are  eleven  Normal 
Schools  maintained  by  the  state  in  different 
sections,  several  of  which  would  onc:^  have  ranked 
as  colleges  in  any  of  the  standards  which  are 
famihar  to  the  country. 

Now  let  us  recollect  all  along,  this  charming 
local  pride.  It  is  the  best  thing  in  Massachu- 
setts, and  you  want  to  find  it  wherever  you  can. 
Here  are  mora  good  instances  of  it.  In  the  begin- 
ning, the  town  of  Paxton,  up  in  the  Worcester 
hills,  held  a  town  meeting  in  which  they  declared 
war  against  King  George.  And  if,  at  this  moment, 
the  town  of  Reading  chooses  to  say  that  the 
Widow  Dorcas  in  her  home  shall  have  better 
water  than  the  President  has  in  the  White  House, 
and  that  her  sitting-room  shall  be  better  lighted 


160 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


at  Christmas  than  this  room  in  which  I  write, 
why,  the  town  of  Reading  lays  the  pipes  and  the 
town  of  Reading  makes  the  electricity,  and 
asks  the  permission  or  the  help  of  nobody  this 


Destruction  of  Tea  in  Boston  Harbor. 
"  Boston  Harbor  a  tea  pot  to-night!     Hurrah  for  Gritfin's  Wharf!  " 

side    of    Our   Father,  with  whom   she  works  in 
such  exigencies. 

When  I  went  to  school,  the  custom  in  teaching 
geography  was  to  begin  with  the  Arctic  Regions 
of  America,  and  work  slowly  down  with  the  vague 
hope  that  some  day  you  would  arrive  at  New 
Zealand  as  a  sort  of  Z  at  the  end  of  the  world. 


Paul  Rkvkke. 

From  the  portrait  by  Gilbert  Stuart. 

161 


MASSACHUSETTS  163 

But  in  practice,  what  with  change  of  masters 
and  of  text-books,  you  were  forever  beginning 
with  Greenland,  reading  about  the  sea  seen  by 
Mackenzie  and  the  seas  seen  by  Mr.  Hearne,  and 
probably  never  travelled  far  beyond  the  United 
States.  For  me  I  never  studied  at  school  any 
geography  of  Asia  or  of  Africa,  and  I  will  say  in 
a  whisper  that  it  has  made  no  difference  whether 
I  ever  did  or  did  not.  But  we  did  advance  in 
my  boyhood  so  far  as  to  be  taught  that  Massa- 
chusetts was  ''celebrated  for  its  fisheries,  and  for 
the  part  she  had  in  the  Revolution."  It  was 
also  stated  that  the  climate  was  good,  but  that 
''in  the  spring  easterly  winds  arise  which  are 
very  disagreeable."  These  facts,  and  no  others, 
I  think,  were  impressed  upon  the  youthful  mind. 
It  is  interesting  to  me  to  remember  that  I  never 
heard  an  east  wind  spoken  of  till,  at  the  age 
of  eleven,  I  had  to  learn  this  sentence,  and  I  asked 
at  home  if  this  were  true.  So  indifferent  are 
little  children  to  their  surroundings. 

I  was   twenty-three  years   old  before   I   ever 
saw  a  wheat-field.     Of  course  I  had  never  seen 


164     TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVEI.S 

cotton-fields  or  rice-fields  or  sugar  plantations. 
But  in  college  I  had  made  long  tramps  north, 
west,  and  east  in  studying  the  flora  of  Middlesex 
and  Essex  counties,  and  a  healthy  interest  in 
botany,  instilled  by  my  dear  mother  when  I  was 
very  young,  had  given  a  half-scientific  interest 
to  such  expeditions.  At  the  end  of  my  freshman 
year  I  and  my  brother  took  a  long  expedition 
on  foot  to  see  for  ourselves  the  locality  of  the 
curious  Lancaster  or  Berlin  made,  a  crystal,  it 
would  be  called,  which  exists  in  Berlin  and  Lan- 
caster and  nowhere  else  in  the  world.  From 
that  hour  to  this  I  have  been  telling  my  young 
friends  that  the  true  way  to  travel  is  to  travel 
on  foot.  Next  best  to  this  is  a  horseback  ride ; 
next  to  this  is  a  journey  on  a  canal.  It  is  only 
far  down  in  the  scale  that  you  come  to  carriages 
and  stage-coaches,  and  to  bicycles  ;  and  automo- 
biles let  us  hope  never.  Wise  Elizabeth  says 
that  we  do  not  take  an  automobile  because  ''our 
object  is  not  to  get  to  this  place  or  that  place,  but 
to  see  what  happens  as  we  go." 

I  was  very  much  laughed  at  among  my  near 


Christ  Church,  Salem  Street. 
165 


MASSACHUSETTS 


167 


friends  a  generation  ago  for  saying,  in  a  little 
guide  book  which  I  wrote  for  New  England  trav- 
ellers, that  the  best  way  to  go  from  Providence 
to  Newport  is  by  a  voyage  in  a  friend's  yacht. 
I  still  hold  to  that  instruction,  though  it  may 


The  Evacuation  of  Boston,  March  17,  1776. 
From  au  engraving  by  F.  T.  Stuart  of  the  drawing  by  L.  Mollis. 

give  one  a  slightly  exaggerated  sense  of  the  re- 
sources of  the  country.  Thus,  the  first  time  I 
ever  went  along  Cape  Cod,  my  cosmopolitan  friend, 
Mr.  Freeman  Cobb,  took  me  with  his  four-in-hand 
barouche  over  the  admirable  highroads  of  Brew- 
ster.     We   were   deprived    by   accident    of    the 


168      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

company  of  a  very  distinguished  French  traveller 
who  was  ' '  doing  "  America.  And  I  have  dehghted 
myself  ever  since  with  imagining  what  his  descrip- 
tion of  Cape  Cod  would  have  been  if  he  had  gone 
with  us  on  that  day's  outing.  For  I  am  afraid 
from  that  time  to  this  time  no  four-in-hand  has 
been  driven  over  those  sands,  certainly  none 
by  a  more  accomplished  or  agreeable  guide. 

Of  course  the  gentle  reader  may  begin  where  he 
likes.  I  should  not  be  sorry  if,  hiring  a  cottage 
at  Nahant  or  Marblehead  Neck  or  on  the  Beverly 
Shore,  quite  early  in  June,  he  made  William  and 
Edward,  if  those  were  the  names  of  his  grooms- 
men, keep  up  the  horses  in  good  condition  till 
Thanksgiving  time,  and  from  these  centres  if 
he  and  Madam  and  the  older  children  made 
excursions,  a  week  at  a  time,  into  the  different 
regions  of  Massachusetts.  But  possibly  the  horses 
may  be  sick  with  some  epizootic  disease  —  pos- 
sibly William  and  Edward  may  have  returned 
for  the  summer  to  visit  Tipperary  or  Riigen, 
and  we  may  need  the  trolley,  steamboat,  or, 
best  of  all,  our  good  feet.     In  that  case,  Boston 


169 


MASSACHUSETTS  171 

is  still  the  best  centre.  It  is  an  excellent  water- 
ing-place. There  is  my  own  treatise  on  Pic- 
turesque Massachusetts,  and  my  ''Historical 
Boston"  and  ''Harry  and  Lucy,"  which  might 
lie  on  the  table.  And  if  it  were  only  a  trolley, 
there  are  trolley  rides  by  which  this  reader  may 
sweep  what  is  well-nigh  a  circle  of  fifty  miles' 
radius.  For  Massachusetts  Bay,  which  takes  in  a 
segment  of  perhaps  a  quarter  of  this  circle,  we  will 
rely  on  the  Othniel  or  Jathniel  or  any  other  of 
the  steam  yachts  of  our  friends,  or,  in  a  more 
democratic  fashion,  we  will  rely  on  the  daily 
excursion  steamer.  For  a  last  resort,  at  least  we 
can  invest  five  cents  in  a  street-car,  and  go  to 
the  South  Boston  public  baths  or  to  Governor's 
Island. 

You  may  cut  out  the  list  of  towns  already  given, 
and  go  to  each  and  all.  But  to  try  geographical 
order,  what  we  really  want  to  see,  ranging  from 
north  to  south,  are,  first,  the  towns  north  of  the 
Merrimac  to  which  we  owe  the  name,  now  national, 
of  the  "Gerrymander."  Under  Governor  Gerry's 
reign  in  1811  this  string  of  towns  made  the  neck 


172 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


of  the  monster  Gerrymander  who  has  gobbled 
up  so  many  majorities  in  all  parts  of  many  coun- 
tries between  that  time  and  this.  I  was  pleased 
to  see  that  .the  name  of  ''Gerrymander"  has 
worked  its  way  into  English  politics. 


The  Gerrymander. 

(See  List  of  Illustrations.) 

In  the  town  of  Newburyport,  at  the  mouth  of 
the  river,  the  fighting  frigates  of  the  Revolution 
were  built.  Think  of  their  names,  —  the  Marino 
Faliero,  the  Protector,  the  Tyrannicide,  the  Oliver 


173 


MASSACHUSETTS  175 

Cromwell.  We  knew  something  of  history  then. 
And  you  must  see  the  river.  Take  care  to  take 
the  steamer  at  Haverhill  some  day  and  spend 
one  of  the  pleasantest  days  of  your  life  in  sailing 
down  the  Merrimac  to  Newburyport.  You  will 
have  an  intelligent  captain  who  will  tell  you  of 
everything  from  the  eagles  in  the  sky  to  the  shad 
in  the  river:  the  first  woollen  manufactory,  the 
first  cotton  manufactory,  first  caterpillar  bridge, 
first  Bill  of  Rights,  origin  of  the  Longfellows,  —  if 
anybody  cares,  of  the  Hales,  certainly  of  the 
Lowells  and  the  Parsonses  and  all  the  rest  of  the 
Essex  Junto,  if  anybody  cares  for  history.  If  you 
believe  that  the  manufacture  of  cotton  is  the  one 
great  object  for  which  God  made  the  world,  as  the 
old  Economists  seemed  to  think,  go  to  Lowell  and 
Lawrence,  and  delight  in  the  conversation  of  those 
very  spirited  and  intelligent  manufacturers.  Or 
is  it  wars  and  rumors  of  wars  ?  Go  to  Lexington 
and  Concord,  or  see  at  Salem  where  the  first  blood 
of  the  Revolution  was  drawn,  or  at  Arlington, 
where  a  black  man  commanded  a  company  of 
exempts  to  whom  we  owe  our  first  victory.     Or 


176      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

Charlestown,  where  is  the  United  States  Navy- 
Yard  with  its  enormous  dry  dock.  Give  a  day 
to  Marblehead,  where  you  can  still  find  some  old 
salts  who  will  talk  to  you  of  the  Constitution, 
or  you  might  go  down  to  the  North  End  Park 
in  Boston  and  board  her. 

Harvard  College?  You  have  heard,  perhaps, 
of  that.  Go  and  see  it ;  tell  them,  you  read  in 
The  Outlook  that  there  was  such  a  place,  and  you 
thought  you  would  like  to  compare  it  with  your 
own  college  at  New  Padua.  You  could  not  spend 
a  week  more  pleasantly  than  I  spent  one  once  on 
the  Great  Brewster  Island.  The  rest  of  the  world 
knew  that  Napoleon  III  was  a  prisoner  of  state 
thirty-six  hours  before  I  did.  But  I  do  not  see  but 
that  I  am  as  happy  now  as  I  was  then  for  all  that. 

Do  you  want  to  see  them  build  ironclads  ?  Go 
to  Fore  River.  Or  will  you  shed  tears  over  the 
first  winter  in  Plymouth?  Shed  them  at  the 
burying-place,  which  is  veiy  like  what  it  was  then. 
Is  it  ropes  and  cordage?  Take  a  trolley  from 
the  burial-place  and  learn  all  about  that,  —  or 
where  I  fired  my  first  gun?    Sandwich. 


"■•is 


\ji^ .A  VV'.^;>Z>ira-.fiJJ.jJU.^ 


177 


MASSACHUSETTS 


179 


Recollect  now,  if  you  please,  that  you  have 
come  into  the  Old  Colony  —  three  counties,  Plym- 
outh, Bristol,  and  Barnstable.  And  in  those 
counties,  from  the  time  when  old  John  Robinson 
said,  ''There  is  more  light  and  more  truth  yet 


Departure  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  from  Delft  Haven. 
From  the  painting  by  Charles  W.  Cope. 

to  come  out  of  God's  Holy  Word,"  there  has  been 
more  freedom  in  religion  —  let  one  say,  rever- 
ently, more  persons  have  enjoyed  easy  access 
from  the  child  to  our  Father  who  is  in  heaven  — 
than  in  any  other  region  of  the  same  population 
in  this  world  into  which  His  kingdom  is  to  come. 


180      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

In  saying  this,  I  hoj^c  the  imaginary  student 
whom  I  am  leading  will  spend  enough  time  on 
Cape  Cod.  The  last  time  I  visited  its  capital, 
Barnstable,  I  asked  my  wife  if  she  had  ever  gone 
into  a  jail.  It  proved  that  she  never  had,  and 
I  took  her  into  the  jail  of  this  county  —  what 
in  New  England  we  call  the  County  House, 
because  it  is  both  jail  and  house  of  correction 
and  the  residence  of  the  keeper.  We  had  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  the  accomplished  keeper  and 
his  friendly  wife  and  the  cells  of  the  jail,  but 
there  were  no  prisoners  there.  I  tried  afteiivards 
to  make  the  clergyman  of  the  place  (he  would 
be  called  bishop  if  ours  were  an  effete  civilization) 
describe  the  social  influences  which  led  to  such 
a  result.  But  he  said  the  thing  was  a  matter  of 
course  —  there  could  be  no  interest  in  any  such 
discussion.  He  said  I  had  better  write  the  book 
myself,  which  I  have  never  had  time  to  do. 

In  our  day  you  can  take  an  excellent  train  to 
Provincetown,  and  you  can  stop  and  see  the  cran- 
berry plantations  which  have  proved  even  more 
profitable  than  the  old  deep-sea  fisheries  of  the 


MASSACHUSETTS 


181 


Cape.  You  may  hear  traditions  upon  traditions 
of  the  wreck  of  the  Quidah  pirate  and  of  the 
Somerset  man-of-war.     You  will  find  a  little  odd 


Edward  Winslow. 

remnant  of  the  recollections  of  the  fisheries  and 
privateering.  You  will  come  back  glad  that  you 
have  been  to  Cape  Cod,  and  sorry  that  you  cannot 
stay  there  longer. 


182 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


Another  good  centre  would  be  Worcester, 
'Hhe  heart  of  the  Commonwealth/'  as  I  said 
just  now.  An  Englishman  named  Samuel  Slater, 
in  what  is  now  Pawtucket  in  Rhode  Island, 
really    established    the    cotton    manufacture    of 


Public  Worship  at  Plymouth  by  the  Pilgkims. 


America.  In  time  the  Cabots  were  before  him  at 
Beverly.  Slater  came  up  to  Worcester  one  day, 
it  must  have  been  in  the  thirties  of  the  last 
century,  and  young  Pliny  Merrick  said  to  him, 
''We  shall  never  have  any  large  factories  in 
Worcester,  because  we  have  but  little  water-power 


MASSACHUSETTS  183 

here."  Mr.  Slater  replied:  ''Mr.  Merrick,  you- 
will  live  to  see  the  day  when  Worcester  needs  all 
the  water  in  its  Mill  Brook  to  feed  the  steam- 
engines  which  will  be  running  in  this  valley." 
His  prophecy  was  long  since  true,  for  they  had 
to  build  the  great  reservoir  up  in  their  hills 
to  feed  their  steam-engines,  the  locomotives 
among  the  rest. 

I  have  said  twenty  times  in  print  and  elsewhere 
that  Worcester,  which  was  once  my  home,  is  a 
Western  town  in  the  heart  of  New  England; 
and  this  is  still  true.  Here  are  the  old  Xew 
England  dignities,  even  conventionalities  and 
etiquettes,  and  here  is  the  ''run-with-the-machine  " 
and  ''get-out-of-the-way-boy"  of  a  great  Western 
city.  I  do  not  think  they  know  themselves  how 
many  nationalities  are  here.  I  do  not  say  how 
many  Swedish  churches  there  are,  because  they 
will  build  another  while  I  am  reading  the  proof. 
Armenians  ?  Yes  !  French  Canadians  ?  Oh,  yes^ 
of  course.  And  so  on  and  so  on.  But  still  the 
old  sturdy  Worcester  of  Isaiah  Thomas,  when 
after  the  battle  of  Lexington  he  put  his  printing- 


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TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


press  and  his  types  into  wagons  in  Boston,  and, 
arriving  three  or  four  days  after,  printed  the 
Massachusetts  Spy  in  Worcester,  which  he 
and  his  have  printed  from  that  day  to  this  year. 
Ah !    there  were  many  of  the  antislavery  years 


The  Wayside  Inn,  Sudbury,  Mass. 
(Present  Day.) 

when   the   S'py  was  as  another  gospel   to   these 
Worcester  County  farmers. 

The  reader  must  let  me  stop,  for  another  minute, 
to  tell  how  the  town  came  to  be  named  Worces- 
ter.    Governor  Andros,  whom  we  all  hated  be- 


MASSACHUSETTS 


185 


cause  he  was  James  the  Second's  man,  had  to 
order  a  session  of  the  General  Court  of  Massa- 
chusetts. So  they  came  together  and  they  meant 
to  do  something  before  he  prorogued  them, 
as  they  knew  he  would  do.  What  would  be  a 
good  thing  to  do  ?  Why,  here  is  a  petition  from 
some  settlers  by  Lake 
Quinsigamond  who 
want  to  be  made  a 
township.  Yes,  we 
will  charter  them. 
And  so  we  will  show 
King  James  that  wc 
can  create  a  town. 
And  what  shall  we 
name  the  town  ?  We 
will  name  it  Worces- 
ter, because  with 

Worcester  in  England  Charles  II  got  his  worst 
thrashing,  and  ran  away  as  fast  as  his  horse 
would  carry  him,  for  his  exile  of  nine  years.  Let 
him  put  that  in  his  pipe  and  smoke  it.  There  is  a 
good  deal  of  that  sort  of  Worcester  left.     It  is  to 


Senator  Hoar. 


180      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

Worcester  that  Carroll  Wright  has  been  called 
to  manage  the  academic  college  in  Clark  Univer- 
sity, which  Stanley  Hall  launched  and  directs. 
Mr.  Salisbury,  one  of  Worcester's  public-spirited 
citizens,  died  a  few  months  ago.  He  has  by  the 
princely  bequests  in  his  will  given  a  firm  founda- 
tion to  what  will  be  one  of  the  finest  galleries  of 
painting  and  sculpture  in  the  country.  And  from 
Worcester,  if  you  look  at  any  map  of  that 
county,  you  will  see  that  there  extend  six 
spider-webs  of  railroads,  which  will  take  you 
anywhere.  It  is  the  Worcester  from  which  dear 
Senator  Hoa»  started  whenever  he  went  to 
Washington. 

When  I  lived  in  Worcester,  we  used  to  laugh 
about  the  street  corner  below  Brinley  Hall.  We 
used  to  say  that  if  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  United 
States  died,  a  few  of  the  Worcester  men  would  get 
together  on  that  corner  and  determine  who  was  his 
proper  successor  from  the  leaders  of  the  County 
Bar.  Dr.  Samuel  Haven,  one  of  our  modest 
students  of  histoiy,  used  to  have  his  joke  in  saying 
that  Timothy  Ruggles,  of  Worcester  County,  would 


187 


MASSACHUSETTS  189 

have  been  the  proper  mihtary  chief  in  the  Revolu- 
tion if  by  misfortune  he  had  not  been  a  Tory 
attached  to  King  George.  We  took  Artemas 
Ward  of  Shrewsbury. 

To  this  hour  those  Worcester  County  people  have 
a  fashion  of  thinking  a  good  deal  for  themselves.  It 
was  my  lousiness  in  1888,  analyzing  the  vote  of 
Worcester  County  after  the  election  of  the  younger 
Harrison,  to  find,  to  the  confusion  of  people  who 
distrust  universal  suffrage  and  think  we  ought  to 
have  a  property  qualification,  and  all  that  ''you 
know,"  the  somewhat  interesting  fact  that  there 
were  more  landholders  in  the  territorial  boundary 
of  the  city  of  Worcester  than  there  were  voters  in 
that  critical  election.  A  young  fellow  walks  into  a 
bank  parlor  in  Worcester,  shows  them  his  new  in- 
vention in  wood  or  in  horsehair,  in  wool,  in  ivory, 
in  steel,  or  in  copper,  and  the  Worcester  banker  sees 
that  the  young  fellow  does  not  drink,  nor  play 
cards,  nor  swear,  and  he  gives  him  a  discount  be- 
cause he  was  born  in  Worcester  County.  And  then 
the  young  fellow  goes  away,  and  before  you  have 
done  with  him,  he  is  in  business  correspondence 


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TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


with  the  Sultan  of  some  unexplored  region  in  Cen- 
tral Africa.  This  was  the  Worcester  of  my  time,  and 
I  fancy  it  is  the  Worcester  of  to-day.  In  my  time 
there  was  not  a  manufacturing  corporation  in  the 
city.    Every  man  made  his  own  invention,  took  out 

his  own  patent,  drove  his 
own  steam-engine,  and 
made  his  own  fortune. 

Another  charming 
centre  is  farther  west  at 
Pittsfield.  Here,  again, 
two  lines  of  railway 
cross  each  other.  Here 
are  some  of  the  most 
intelligent  and  charm- 
ing people  in  the  world. 
And  here  they  have  been  since  the  place  was 
called  Wendellboro,  and  Dr.  Holmes's  ancestors 
lived  here.  You  may  go  north  to  Greylock, 
determined  to  send  your  son  to  Williams  College ; 
you  may  go  south  down  the  valley  of  the  Housa- 
tonic,  and  make  a  call  on  Asaph  Hall,  the  great 
astronomer,  as  he  lives  among  the  shadows  of 


Henry  Laurens  Dawes. 


^.^^^^r.,^. 


191 


MASSACHUSETTS  193 

the  hills.  Here  lived  and  here  died  our  honored 
friend  Henry  Laurens  Dawes,  who  maintained 
the  good  name  of  Massachusetts  so  long  in  the 
Senate  at  Washington.  Here  was  one  man  who 
understood  the  Indian  problem,  and  while  he 
held  the  reins  nobody  talked  of  dishonor  in  our 
dealings  with  the  Indians.  The  story  is  told  of 
Charles  Sumner  that  he  said  of  supposed  corrup- 
tion in  Washington  that  nobody  had  ever  ap- 
proached him  with  a  dishonorable  proposal. 
We  Massachusetts  people  boast  that  from  his 
day  to  our  day  that  story  could  be  applied  to 
either  of  our  Senators.  Just  before  he  died  Mr. 
Dawes  had  delivered  a  few  lectures  at  Dartmouth 
College,  and  perhaps  Williams  College,  on  matters 
connected  with  government.  What  a  pity  that 
he  could  not  have  lived  for  a  generation  more, 
if  it  were  only  to  give  us  such  results  of  his 
experience ! 

I  will  not  send  this  sheet  away  till  I  have  said 
to  any  young  traveller  that  I  have  found  it  a  good 
practice  wherever  I  journey  to  see  the  people 
who  make  the  laws  of  a  country.     I  never  go 


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TARKY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


to  London  but  I  ask  them  at  our  Legation  to  give 
me  what  passes  they  can  into  the  gallery  of  the 


(HAKLKS    SUMNEK. 

From  a  photograph  in  possession  of  F.  J.  Garrison,  Esq. 

House  of  Commons,  and  I  sit  there  night  after 
night  to  see  how  England  is  governed.     In  the 


MASSACHUSETTS  195 

same  way  I  have  sat  hours  in  the  gallery  of  the 
Chambers  at  Paris  and  in  the  elegant  gallery  of 
the  Parliament  of  Spain.  In  travelling  in  America 
I  always  try  to  go  into  the  state  Capitol,  wherever 
it  is,  and  see  their  methods.  You  get  a  great 
deal  more  than  mere  information  as  to  legis- 
lative customs  and  laws;  you  see  a  great  deal 
of  the  character  of  the  people.  So  this  I  say  to 
the  intelligent  traveller,  that  in  either  of  these 
states  of  which  I  have  been  speaking  he  may 
get  good  lessons  for  himself,  be  he  President, 
Judge,  Senator,  or  sixteenth  assistant  in  an  Audi- 
tor's office  at  Washington,  if  he  will  go  into  the 
gallery  of  either  state  legislature  and  see  with 
what  dignity  and  promptness  these  legislators 
address  themselves  to  their  duties.  Just  now  I 
am  reading  Gladstone,  to  see  with  amazement 
how  well  the  English  Parhament  goes  on  in  the 
hands  of  five  or  six  hundred  gentlemen  in  England 
who  take  upon  themselves  the  direction  of  that 
empire.  .And  I  lay  do^vn  that  book  with  a  certam 
American  pride,  that  when  you  send  two  or  three 
hundred  men  to  the  state  legislature  for  a  few 


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TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


months,  taking  them  from  mill,  forge,  fishing- 
hoat,  counting-room,  pulpit,  garden,  farm,  quarry, 
or  whatever  other  range  of  life  you  choose,  when 
you  follow  them  to  the  House  of  Representatives 

or  to  the  Senate 
of  their  state,  the 
whole  machinery 
of  legislation 
moves  forward 
with  absolute 
dignity,  as  if  each 
man  were  trained 
in  hereditary 
succession  to 
make  laws  for  his 
people.  So,  in- 
deed, each  man  is, 
if  he  have  the  good  luck  to  be  born  in  New  England. 
How  does  Massachusetts  show  in  the  Hall  of 
Fame?  By  hook  or  by  crook,  we  succeeded,  a 
fair  majority  of  us,  in  selecting  twenty-nine 
names  for  Miss  Gould's  list  of  heroes.  They  were 
to  be  the  names  of  Americans  by  birth  who  had 


Professor  Asa  Gray. 


MASSACHUSETTS  197 

died  more  than  ten  j-ears  before  our  selection. 
Well,  out  of  the  twenty-nine,  Massachusetts  had 
fifteen,  if  you  will  let  us  count  in  Channing,  Daniel 
Webster,  Beecher,  and  Asa  Gray.  This  includes 
Longfellow  who  was  born  in  Maine  when  it  was  a 
part  of  Massachusetts. 

She  had  John  Adams,  Benjamin  Franklin,  Daniel 
Webster,  Joseph  Stoiy,  George  Peabody,  Eh  Whit- 
ney, Samuel  F.  B.  Morse,  Asa  Gray,  Jonathan 
Edwards,  Horace  Mann,  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne, 
Henry  Longfellow,  William  EUery  Channing. 

In  the  picture  gallery  of  Harvard  College  we 
have  three  Presidents,  —  John  Adams,  John 
Quincy  Adams,  and  Rutherford  B.  Hayes,  be- 
cause he  was  at  our  Law  School.  Hayes  was  born 
and  educated  in  boyhood  in  Ohio.  Still,  these 
will  do  for  our  fame  in  the  hall  where  for  one 
reason  or  another  we  could  not  include  John 
Hancock,  Samuel  Adams,  Edward  Everett,  Wen- 
dell Phillips,  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  Henry 
Laurens  Dawes,  and  George  Frisbie  Hoar.  Hall 
of  Fame  or  not,  they  are  dear  to  us. 


CHAPTER  VI 
EHODE   ISLAND 

The  Island  of  Rhode  Island  is  in  Narragansett 
Bay.  Fashion  is  not  a  fool,  and  fashion  in 
America  has  selected  the  Island  of  Rhode  Island 
as  the  best  place  to  live  in  for  six  months  of  the 
year.  From  this  beautiful  island  the  ''State  of 
Rhode  Island  and  Providence  Plantations"  is 
named.  ''Little  Rhody/'  it  is  affectionately 
called  by  its  inhabitants.  The  books  will  tell 
you  that  Rhode  Island  was  named  by  its  dis- 
coverer, Adrian  Block,  from  the  island  of  Rhodes 
in  the  vEgean  Sea.  But  the  books  give  no  reason, 
nor  does  anybody  give  any  reason,  why  Adrian 
Block  should  have  named  the  island  which  he 
discovered  after  the  ^gean ;  nobody  knows  that 
he  ever  was  in  the  yEgean. 

According  to  me,  when  Block  swept  into  Nar- 
ragansett Bay  he  found  a  splendid  grove  of  rho- 

198 


RHODE   ISLAND 


199 


dodendron.  If  you  wish  to  be  accurate,  this  was 
the  rhododendron  maximum  of  Gray  and  the 
modern  botanists.     It  is  the  finest  flower  in  the 


Ochre  Poixt,  Newport. 

"  Fasbiou  in  America  has  selected  the  Island  of  Rhode  Island  as  the 

best  place  to  live  in  for  six  months  of  the  year." 


American  flora, 
the  first  time. 


Adrian  Block  saw  it  then  for 


Hard  a  port !     Now  close  to  shore  sail ! 

Starboard  now,  and  drop  your  foresail ! 
See,  boys,  what  yon  ba}'  discloses, 
What  yon  open  bay  discloses  ! 
Where  the  breeze  so  gently  blows  is 
Heaven's  own  land  of  ruddy  roses. 


200     TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

Past  the  Cormorant  we  sail, 

Past  the  rippHng  Beaver  Tail. 
Green  with  summer,  red  with  flowers, 
Green  with  summer,  fresh  with  showers, 
Sweet  with  song  and  red  with  flowers, 
Is  this  new-found  land  of  ours ! 

Roses  close  above  the  sand, 

Roses  on  the  trees  on  land, 
I  shall  take  this  land  for  my  land, 
Rosy  beach  and  rosy  highland. 
And  I  name  it  Roses  Island. 

According  to  me,  Block  named  the  island  Roses 
Island  when  he  saw  this  magnificent  spectacle. 
If  you  will  come  and  see  me  where  I  write,  not 
far  away,  and  come  before  July  is  over,  I  will 
take  you  into  a  rhododendron  covert,  where 
you  may  see  the  same  thing.  So  far  as  I  know, 
no  one  excepting  the  immediate  circle  of  my 
dearest  friends  believes  in  this  interpretation  or 
etymology.  But  it  is  within  this  generation  that 
I  published  it  to  the  world,  and  we  will  still  hope 
that  it  will  gradually  reach  its  place  at  the  head 
of  the  theories  about  the  name  of  Rhode  Island. 
(Since  I  put  this  statement  into  print  an  atten- 
tive correspondent  tells  me  that  Roger  Williams 


ERODE   ISLAND 


201 


says  in  one  of  his  letters  that  the  island  was 
named  from  the  roses  on  its  shores.) 

As  I  have  said  already,  the  best  way  to  go  to 


Jean  Baptiste  Donatien  de  Vimeure,  Comte  de  Rochambeau. 
1725—1807. 

Newport  is  to  go  in  a  friend's  yacht  from  Provi- 
dence. The  voyage  may  take  you  a  longer  or 
shorter  time,  according  as  the  yacht  has  steam 
power  or  has  not;  according  as  winds  are  north 
or  south.     But  you  will  not  care  much  for  that. 


202 


TAKRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


It  will  be  a  pleasant  voyage,  anyway.  So  pleasant 
is  it  that  you  will  not  be  far  amiss  if,  going  to 
New  York  from  Boston,  you  go  as  your  grand- 
father used  to  do  —  in  a  steamboat  from  Provi- 
dence. It  is  not  so  large  as  the  Fall  River  steam- 
boat, but  it  gives  you  this  charming  bay.     Every 

inch  of  that  has  its 
story,  if  you  should 
happen  to  find  some 
old  sachem  who  can 
tell  you  that  storj^ 
''Stor}^?  God  bless 
you!"  Yes.  Stories 
of  Roger  Williams,  of 
Canonicus  and  Canon- 
chet,  of  Wampum  (ask 

Chevalier  de  Chastellux.         William      Wccdcn      tO 

tell  you  that) ;  stories  of  King  Philip,  and  of 
Tower  Hill,  and  of  the  Narragansett  fight ;  stories 
of  the  capture  of  the  Gaspec;  stories  of  the 
capture  of  Prescott;  stories  of  Rochambeau,  of 
Chastellux,  of  Lafayette  and  a  hundred  brave 
Frenchmen;   stories  of  a  thousand  pretty  girls 


EHODE   ISLAND 


203 


whom  they  danced  and  flirted  with;  stories  of 
the  slave  trade,  of  the  De  Wolfs  and  the  Hoppers 
and  the  Herreshoffs ;  stories  of  clambake  —  stories 
enough  even  if  the  voyage  should  last  from  June 
to  October.     .\nd  by  the  -time  you  come  to  the 


w^ 

^ft 

i 

K 

^H 

JM 

4l.iiyia<JfL ... 

Iw'v*?-.'-    L 

^^pp 

^^^^P^^v 

ife 

'   ir  ?  ^ 

B^E^S-^^fe 

-  ■  --<! 

"Destruction  of  the  Schooner  'Gaspee'  in  the  Waters  of 
Rhode  Island,  1772." 
From  an  old  engraving. 

rough  turning  of  Point  Judith  you  will  be  asleep 
in  your  stateroom  and  the  rough  sea  will  not 
trouble  you. 

Point  Judith  ? — Just  a  word  about  Point  Judith. 
Dear  old  John  Hull,  the  same  who  coined  the  first 
silver  money  for  Massachusetts  and  showed  to 


204      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

Cromwell  and  King  Charles  and  the  sachems  of 
New  England  that  Massachusetts  had  the  sover- 
eign rights  of  coining  money  —  this  same  John 
Hull  had  a  daughter  Judith.  If  you  are  well  up 
in  your  Hawthorne,  you  know  that  the  night 
Samuel  Sewall  (afterwards  Chief  Justice,  the 
same  who  hanged  the  witches)  married  Judith 
Hull,  old  John  Hull,  her  father,  put  her  into  one 
scale  of  the  balance  and  poured  pine-tree  shillings 
into  the  other  enough  to  weigh  her  down.  One 
hundred  and  twenty-five  pounds  sterling  the 
girl  weighed,  if  you  will  trust  me  who  have  read 
the  same  in  the  manuscript  ledger  of  her  new 
husband.  This,  according  to  Hawthorne,  was 
her  dower. 

Well,  this  same  Jolm  Hull  and  his  sometime 
son-in-law  Sewall  went  into  a  fine  speculation  in 
the  southern  part  of  Rhode  Island,  and  bought 
the  Petaquamscot  Purchase  from  the  Indians 
of  their  day.  If  you  care,  dear  reader,  it  is  in 
my  own  house  in  the  Petaquamscot  Purchase 
overlooking  Point  Judith,  when  I  look  out  of 
the   window,   that  I  am  dictating  these  words. 


RHODE   ISLAND 


205 


Well,  dear  old  John  Hull,  whose  grandchildren's 
great-grandchildren  came  in  here  just  now  with 
the  Providence  Journal,  wanted  to  give  to 
this  outlying  point  a  name,  and  he  gave  it  Judith 
Hull's  name,  I  think,  before  she  was  Judith  Sewall. 
One  of  my  New 
Hampshire  corre- 
spondents, sniff- 
ing at  the  ocean 
and  all  it  brings 
with  it,  asks  me 
if  he  named  Ju- 
dith Hull  from 
Point  Judith;  if 
she  were  misty 
and  frigid  and 
stormy  and  dis- 
agreeable in  gen- 
eral, and  if  it  were  fair  that  he  should  borrow 
the  name  from  the  storm-washed  point  for  the 
baby  who  was  to  be,  as  it  proved,  the  ances- 
tor of  heroes.  Dr.  Holmes's  Dorothy  Q,  for  in- 
stance, is  in  that  line.     But  the  New  Hampshire 


Samuel  Sewall. 
From  au  old  euaravinff. 


20G      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

correspondent  is  mU  wrong.  Judith  Hull  was  not 
named  from  Point  Judith;  Point  Judith  was 
named  from  Judith  Hull. 

And  while  we  are  gossiping  about  the  first 
Petaquamscot  Purchase  I  may  as  well  say  that 
some  of  the  Narragansett  Indians  took  Roger 
Williams  to  what  we  call  here  ''Sugar  Loaf  Hill" 
and  bade  him  survey  the  prospect.  One  is  re- 
minded of  the  ''exceeding  high  mountain"  of 
another  story.  They  told  Roger  Williams,  who 
seems  to  have  believed  it,  that  some  of  their 
ancestors  went  from  Petaquamscot  to  the  regions 
of  the  Blue  Hills  in  Massachusetts.  And  they 
gave  Roger  Williams  to  understand  that  when 
the  Massachusetts  people  exiled  him  to  the  Nar- 
ragansett country  he  came  back  to  the  centre  of 
New  England  civilization,  which  lay  around  these 
waters  of  what  we  call  "Salt  Pond."  What  I 
know  is  that  when  Judge  Sewall  died,  he  and 
his  wife  Hannah  left  a  farm  of  five  hundred  acres 
here  at  Petaquamscot  to  Harvard  College,  and 
the  college  still  uses  the  income  towards  the 
"support   and   education   of   youths   at   college, 


RHODE   ISLAND 


201 


especially  such  as  shall  be  sent  from  Petaquam- 
scot  aforesaid,  English  or  Indian,  if  any  such  there 
be."  So  we  are  trying  to  repay  Judith's  debts. 
Hannah,  if  anybody  cares,  was  the  successor  of 
Judith. 

Roger  Williams  soon  found,  I  think,  that  the 


Landing  of  Kogek  Williams. 
From  an  old  engraving. 

Puritan  oligarchs  of  Massachusetts  Bay  had 
'' kicked  him  upstairs,"  as  our  English  friends 
say.  He  wrote  to  somebody  that  in  our  Rhode 
Island  countr}'  he  had  seen  at  one  time  straw- 
berries enough  in  fruit  to  load  a  ship  with.  In- 
deed, it  is  in  this  same  letter  that  we  have  the 
famous  epigram  of  his  friend  Dr.  Boteler,  that 


208      TARKY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

God  might  have  made  a  better  berry,  but  that  He 
never  did.  Whoever  is  bragging  about  our  Con- 
tinent to  an  effete  Europe  may  like  to  say  that 
the  introduction  of  the  American  strawberry 
into  the  gardens  of  the  old  world  resulted  in  a 
manifold  and  manifest  improvement  of  the  straw- 
berry of  to-day  over  the  strawberry  of  Virgil  and 
Pliny. 

Dear  Roger  Williams,  he  went  and  came  in  this 
region,  he  traversed  our  beautiful  lakes  in  his 
canoe,  and  he  learned  the  language  of  Canonicus 
and  the  rest,  and  preserved  it  for  posterity.  He 
has  left  us  one  and  another  of  sidelights  on  his 
time  which  interpret  to  us  his  own  good  sense  and 
religious  philosophy. 

I  am  fond  of  saying  that  I  like  to  live  in  New 
England  and  that  I  hke  to  hve  in  the  South; 
that  Providence  has,  therefore,  chosen  for  me 
this  summer  home  of  mine  as  far  south  as  one  can 
go  and  stay  in  New  England  all  the  time.  This 
is  certain,  that  our  poor  scattered  Algonquins, 
be  they  Penacooks  or  Mystics  or  Naticks  or 
Abernakis  or  Aberginians,  as  they  froze   in  our 


KHODE   ISLAND 


209 


average  New  England  temperature  of  forty-three 
degrees,  felt  their  blood  run  faster  and  life  more 
beautiful  when  a  south  wind  Ijlew  in  upon  them. 
So  in  their  imaginative 
mood  they  fancied  that 
heaven  was  in  the  south- 
west. They  thought  they 
were  nearer  heaven  in 
Rhode  Island  than  they 
were  on  the  slopes  of  the 
White  Mountains.  If 
they  could  keep  in  the 
open  air  here  more  than 
they  could  there,  they  were 
right  in  this  conception. 

Whatever  the  legend 
of  ''Sugar  Loaf  Hill"  may 
be    worth,    there    is    no 


Roger  Williams. 

doubt    that  the  Narragan-     statue  by  Frankllu  Simmons, 

at   Providence,  R.  I. 

setts,  who  made  this  region 

their  home,  were  the  superiors  in  government,  in 
commerce,  in  language,  in  the  whole  range  of  sav- 
age civihzation,  of  all  the  New  England  Indians. 


210      TARKY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

Williams  liked  them  and  they  liked  him,  and  for 
nearly  fifty  years  his  relations  with  their  leaders 
proved  to  be  of  great  value  to  the  infant  con- 
federacy of  New  England.  According  to  me,  his 
studies  of  the  Indian  character  with  his  studies 
of  the  Indian  language  are  the  most  important 
documents  of  that  time  which  we  have  left  in  our 
too  scanty  ethnological  libraries. 

Do  not  neglect  by  any  means  to  go  to  Bristol  — 
quaint,  old-fashioned,  historical,  and  beautiful. 
You  see  there  were  days  when  the  maritime  com- 
merce of  Bristol  was,  I  think,  quite  equal  to  that 
of  New  York;  certainly  it  was  in  advance  over 
that  of  Boston.  To  hold  the  Narragansett  Bay 
was  the  ambition  of  the  English  commanders 
through  the  Revolution.  And  there  is  many  a 
Revolutionary  story,  now  of  battle,  now  of  ad- 
venture, now  of  intrigue,  of  these  waters,  and  of 
these  shores.  Look  on  the  right  pane  of  the 
right  window  and  you  shall  find  where  some 
modest  patriot  wrote  on  the  glass  what  he  seems 
not  to  have  dared  to  say  to  the  face  of  ^Hhe  in- 
comparable Miss  Abby  Brown." 


Captaix  Esek  Hopkins, 
" Commandant  en  Chef  la  Flotte  Americaixe." 

211 


RHODE   ISLAND  213 

It  was  the  Bristol  slave  traders  whom  Mr. 
Webster  rebuked  in  his  Plymouth  address  of 
1820.  1808  marked  the  year  when  the  slave 
trade  was  prohibited  almost  of  course  by  Con- 
gress. But  the  shackles  were  still  forged  in 
Bristol  County  in  Massachusetts,  and  the  shackles 
went  from  Bristol  in  Rhode  Island  to  the  West 
African  shore. 

The  yachtsmen  still  exult  in  the  name  of 
Herreshoff,  and  in  the  fame  which  Bristol  has 
won  when  she  has  sent  out  such  boats  as  the 
Columbia  and  the  Defender  and  the  other  cham- 
pions of  the  sea.  Whoever  wants  to  see  one  of 
the  finest  memorials  of  the  finest  old  life  of  New 
England  must  obtain  an  introduction  which  shall 
open  to  him  the  doors  of  the  Herreshoff  home- 
steads. 

Bristol  does  not  send  shackles  to  Africa  any 
longer;  but  very  likely,  my  dear  Annabel,  when 
you  walk  across  the  snowy  sidewalk  next  Decem- 
ber, you  will  be  wearing  Bristol  overshoes.  I  do 
not  mean  to  intimate  that  they  are  too  small 
for  those  pretty  feet. 


214     TAKKY  AT  HOME  TEAVELS 

I  think  the  audacity  of  the  Rhode  Islanders  in 
their  early  conflict  with  the  English  navy  on  one 
point  and  another  of  Narragansett  Bay  gives  them 
the  highest  place  in  the  chronological  history  of 
our  independence.  Our  first  Admiral  Hopkins 
was  a  Rhode  Islander.  When  he  stole  the  pow- 
der from  Bermuda  and  the  Bahamas  and  sent  it 
uj)  to  poor  Washington  at  Cambridge,  he  did  the 
right  thing  at  the  right  time.  Paul  Jones  never 
can  say  too  much  of  his  Narragansett  seamen. 
In  those  days,  indeed,  Rhode  Island  supplied 
the  West  Indies  with  what  they  wanted  to  eat  and 
with  the  horses  which  the  Islanders  rode  upon. 
We  have  changed  all  that,  for  horses  and  wheat 
now  go  from  another  valley  nearer  the  West 
Indies  and  far  away  from  New  England. 

But  in  those  days  Berkeley,  resting  as  he  made 
the  preparations  for  the  great  American  College 
at  Bermuda,  gave  Newport  its  first  fame  among 
men  and  women  of  letters.  And  he  is  remem- 
bered here  as  I  suppose  he  is  not  remembered 
anywhere  else  but  in  California.  '^Westward  the 
star  of  empire  takes  its  way."     The  reader  will 


RHODE   ISLAND  215 

remember  that  Dartmouth  College  is  the  child 
of  Wheelock,  who  was  a  beneficiary  under 
Berkeley's  bequest  to  Yale  College.  I  have  no 
Rhode  Island  excursion  which  pleases  me  more 
than  my  visit  to  the  Berkeley  Museum  which 
the  Colonial  Dames  have  established  in  Berkeley's 
old  home  at  Newport.  A  good  portrait  of  Berke- 
ley is  among  the  treasures  at  Yale  College  in 
New  Haven,  whe^'e  Berkeley  made  himself  a  real 
friend.  "The  Minute  Philosophy"  and  others  of 
the  really  scientific  philosophical  books  —  Mrs. 
Eddy  would  say  prophetical  books  —  were 
thought  out  in  Berkeley's  walks  at  Newport. 
I  have  fancied  that  the  freshness  of  the  sea  breeze 
and  the  tonic  of  the  surf  might  be  traced  in  them 
to  this  day. 

Something  —  and  the  reader  must  tell  me 
what  —  has  given  to  the  State  of  Rhode  Island 
and  Providence  Plantations  a  race  of  Ideahsts, 
such  as  is  hard  to  parallel  elsewhere  in  a  period 
so  short  as  the  time  since  Roger  Williams  landed 
at  Mosshassuck.  Here  is  Williams  himself,  with 
all  his  claims  to  being  the  earhest  prophet  of 


216 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


real  freedom  of  conscience.  Here  is  Berkeley; 
there  are  the  traditions  of  George  Fox,  and  the 
warm  welcome  which  Rhode  Island  gave  him. 
For  here  was  the  one  haven  of  rest  for  the  Quak- 
ers in  the  days  before  WiUiam  Penn  established 

for  them  another.     I 


-ti^ 


have  worshipped  in 
the  Quaker  meeting- 
house which  was  built 
in  honor  of  George 
Fox's  first  visit  here. 
It  must  have  been 
that  the  absolute  in- 
dependence of  every 
man  as  he  approaches 
his  God,  not  to  say  of 
every  hamlet  as  it 
built  its  roads  or  its  schoolhouse,  had  something 
to  do  with  this  vein  of  mysticism  or  idealism 
which  runs  all  through  Rhode  Island  history. 
Here  was  Samuel  Hopkins,  the  preacher,  with 
his  protest  against  the  slave  trade,  when  the  slave 
trade  was  all  the  fashion  in  Providence  and  in 


George  Fox. 


KHODE   ISLAND  217 

Rhode  Island.  And  here  was  Wilham  Eheiy  Chan- 
ning,  who  remembered  his  own  shudder  when  as  a 
boy  he  heard  Hopkins  describe  hell  fire  with  enthu- 
siasm. Here  was  Rowland  Hazard,  first  of  that 
honored  name,  who  taught  us  that  man  is  a 
Creative  Force,  the  first  antagonist  to  Jonathan 
Edwards  worthy  of  his  steel.  Here  was  Jemima 
Wilkinson,  who  led  to  New  York  the  first  colony 
which  was  tolerated  by  the  savage  Iroquois. 
Here  was  Alice  Rathburn,  the  charm  of  whose 
eloquence  is  still  referred  to  with  love  by  the  old 
people  up  and  down  through  the  ''South 
County,"  while  no  word  that  she  said  has  been 
remembered. 

Indeed,  it  is  the  same  individualism  which  to 
this  hour  makes  the  farmer  build  his  house 
as  far  from  the  next  one  as  possible.  It  was 
this  same  individualism  which  made  Rhode 
Island  the  last  of  the  thirteen  states  to  join  in 
the  Union.  It  was  not,  I  think,  that  her  leaders 
saw  any  special  difficulties  in  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution. It  was  rather  that  they  did  not  want 
to  do  what  other  people  do.     I  am  afraid  that 


218 


TAKPvY  AT   HOME   TRAVELS 


that  characteristic  hngers  among  some  of  them 
to  this  day. 


''George,"  said  a  friend  of  mine  to  his  friend, 
''I  hear  thee  is  drawn  on  the  jur}^" 

''Yes,  friend,  I  am  on  the  juiy.  It  is  just  in 
haying  time,  too !" 


KHODE   ISLAND  .  219 

''Well,  George,  thee  has  only  to  listen  to  the 
other  eleven,  and  agree  to  what  the  men  of  most 
sense  say." 

''Agree!    Friend,  I  shall  agree  with  nobody!" 

There  is  Roger  Wilhams  in  the  twentieth 
century. 

Dear  Richard  Greenough  used  to  say  to  me 
that  in  matters  of  art  Newport  was  an  American 
Venice.  He  used  to  ask  me  whether  we  might 
not  manufacture  a  theoiy  in  which  south  winds 
off  the  sea,  with  those  fogs  which  soften  harsh 
outlines,  and  that  more  even  temperature  which 
soothes  all  audacity,  shall  I  say  with  a  sort  of 
dew  which  belongs  to  a  high  revelation  half  con- 
cealed, —  he  used  to  say  that  all  this  gave  to 
men  in  the  Italian  Venice  a  charm  of  color,  a 
certain  indecision  in  outline  and  with  it  a  wealth 
of  fancy  and  imagination  which  had  made  the 
^>netian  school  of  art.  According  to  Richard, 
you  may  trace  such  influences  of  climate  in  the 
work  of  Titian,  Veronese,  of  Tintoretto,  and  the 
rest,  and  according  to  him  there  is  a  school  of 
our  American  younger  art  which  belongs  to  this 


220 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


American  Venice,  a  Venice  on  an  island,  a  Venice 
where  you  go  about  in  boats,  a  Venice  where  the 
water  plashes  against  your  door-step,  and  where 
the  south  winds  blow  off  the  sea.     He  remembered 


Gilbert  Stuart. 


that  our  dear  old  Smibert  was  established  here, 
Copley's  teacher.  He  said  that  such  was  the 
training-place  of  Malbone,  of  Gilbert  Stuart, 
and  Allston,  and,  in  our  later  days,  of  Stagg. 
And  why  else  had  he  gone  down  there  to  live 


RHODE   ISLAND  221 

himself?  Where  did  Hunt  go?  and  where  is 
Miss  Jane  Hunt  to-day?  Why  else  did  Mr. 
Richards  make  his  home  as  near  this  Venice  as 
he  could?  Why  else  are  there  so  many  pictures 
of  the  best  on  the  walls  of  your  friends  in  Provi- 
dence and  Bristol  and  Newport? 

I  was  talking  one  day  with  a  very  charming 
Rhode  Island  lady,  who  lived  in  Providence, 
whose  benefactions  have  made  her  loiown  to 
half  the  world.  She  said  to  me,  very  simply, 
''Yes,  I  had  rather  live  in  a  workshop  than  in  a 
tradeshop."  She  meant  that  she  liked  to  live 
in  a  state  where  everybody  you  meet  makes 
something.  We  call  it  manufacture,  but  they 
do  not  make  things  by  hand  any  more.  They 
set  going  a  bit  of  machinery,  and  the  wheels 
rattle  and  the  pistons  slide,  while  they  go  off 
to  the  tops  of  the  Pyramids  or  to  the  South 
Antarctic  to  reach  the  Southern  Pole.  Somehow 
or  other,  more  things  are  made  by  these  five 
hundred  thousand  people  than  are  made  by  so 
many  people  anywhere  else  in  the  world,  so  they 
tell  me,  and  I  suppose  it  is  true. 


222      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

When  I  go  to  Byfield  as  above,  they  tell  me  they 
first  made  woollen  cloth  there.  I  do  not  know 
how  it  is,  but  in  South  Kingston,  here,  they  tell 
me  that  the  first  Rowland  Hazard  was  the  first 
person  to  weave  woollen  thread  by  anything  like 
our  modern  machinery.  What  I  know  is  that 
our  Peacedale  won  the  Imperial  Prize  at  Paris 
as  being  the  best-organized  town  of  manufacture 
in  the  world.  What  I  know  is  that  there  is  hardly 
a  waterfall  in  Rhode  Island  which  is  not  chained. 
I  remember  how  a  Providence  man  once  said  to 
me  that  there  were  twenty  villages  every  Sunday 
in  the  broad  aisle  of  the  church  where  he  wor- 
shipped God. 

How  does  this  happen?  It  happens  thus: 
that  the  Gulf  Stream  moves  silently  and  steadily 
along  the  shore.  It  feeds  the  fogs  rising  from 
the  ocean  and  drifting  slowly  over  the  mainland. 
It  means  that  the  dew  distils  from  heaven;  if 
only  men  would  remember  that  it  is  from  heaven 
that  it  distils.  So  when  other  streams  run 
dry,  the  ponds  in  Rhode  Island,  my  pond  under 
my   window   here,    Worden's    Pond,    two    miles 


EHODE  ISLAND  223 

west  of  me,  Quidnick  Pond,  Witchaug  Pond, 
Mahwansecut  Pond,  are  full,  while  elsewhere 
men  are  talking  of  artificial  reservoirs  for  their 
water  or  are  shutting  down  their  machinery 
because  no  water  flows.  Rhode  Island  is  the 
first  manufacturing  state  in  the  world,  they  tell 
me,  because  the  good  God  of  heaven  made  her 
ponds  in  these  high  lands  which  are  not  mountains, 
and  give  her  steady  reservoirs,  on  which  she  can 
draw  when  the  rest  of  the  world  is  diy.  Well, 
what  we  call  material  laws,  as  I  study  them, 
prove  to  belong  in  the  will  of  the  same  God  whom 
I  call  the  Holy  Spirit.  Anyway,  it  happens,  as 
we  irreverently  say,  that  by  the  side  of  Worden's 
Pond  I  find  there  grew  up  such  a  man  as  Corliss, 
who  with  one  stroke  enlarged  the  power  of  man- 
kind by  fifteen  per  cent.  I  wish  that  I  thought 
liiankind  were  grateful  enough  to  him  for  the 
benefaction. 

A  state  of  Idealists,  you  tefl  me.  Yes,  and  of 
idealists  who  know  what  it  is  to  bring  in  the 
kingdom.  This  is  what  Mrs.  Richmond  meant 
and  what   her  life   illustrated.     We   do  not   let 


224      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

women  file  right  or  file  left  or  hold  their  muskets 
two  inches  from  their  noses ;  we  do  not  let  them 
fling  themselves  against  the  walls  of  Peking  or 
Badajos;  but  such  a  woman  as  Mrs.  Richmond 
or  Miss  Bradley  signs  a  check,  after  she  has 
taken  advice,  and  then  a  dam  is  built  across 
some  stream  and  a  turbine  goes  to  work  in  the 
water,  spinning-frames  make  thread  of  cotton  or 
of  wool,  and  the  looms  weave  it  into  cloth  soft 
enough,  if  you  please,  for  the  cradle  of  an  emperor's 
baby;  and  close  to  the  turbine  and  the  water- 
fall and  the  spinning-frame  and  the  loom  are 
hundreds  of  happy  homes  where  the  boys  grow 
up  to  be  men  and  the  girls  to  be  women,  with 
the  sky  blue  over  their  heads,  and  the  fields 
green  out  of  the  windows,  and  the  forests  all 
ready  for  the  children  to  wander  in  and  be  happy, 
in  and  build  their  castles  of  pine  needles.  I  do 
not  wonder  that  Mrs.  Richmond  liked  to  live  in 
her  workshop. 

We  must  hurry  away.  We  must  go  to  Con- 
necticut and  see  how  they  handle  the  problems 
there.     But  we  do  not  leave  Rhode  Island  with- 


RHODE   ISLAND  225 

out  remembering  the  Browns,  and  Brown  Uni- 
versity, and  Francis  Wayland,  who  gave  that 
University    its    fame    for    half    a    century.     Let 


Francis  Wayland. 
"  The  first  educator  of  his  time." 

me  ask  in  a  parenthesis  what  is  that  matchless 
power  by  which  some  board  of  trustees  picks 
out  a  3^oung  preacher  named  Francis  Wayland 

Q 


226  TARRY  AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

'Svhcn  he  began  to  be  about  thirty  years  of  age," 
and  places  him  where  he  proves  to  be  the  first 
educator  of  his  time?  Remember  that,  ye 
boards  of  appointment  who  have  to  deal  with 
the  nominations  of  men  who  are  to  serve  the 
world  'Svhen  they  began  to  be  about  thirty  years 
of  age."  What  Garfield  said  of  Mark  Hopkins 
could  have  been  said  of  this  leader  of  half  a 
century,  that  you  could  make  a  university  if  you 
put  Francis  Wayland  at  ''one  end  of  a  pine  slab 
and  his  pupil  at  the  other." 

Nor  let  me  forget  Washington's  great  second. 
I  asked  Jared  Sparks  once  what  would  have 
happened  if  Washington  had  been  killed  in  any 
of  the  fighting  around  Philadelphia,  in  1777,  in 
the  Revolution.  Sparks  said  to  me  that  if 
Nathanael  Greene  could  have  taken  his  place,  all 
would  have  been  well;  that  Greene  was  fit  to 
discharge  every  duty  which  Washington  dis- 
charged. And  I  think  Sparks  said  that  Washing- 
ton knew  this.  You  know  the  state  of  Georgia 
gave  Greene  a  plantation  because  he  rescued  it. 
And  it  will  not  hurt  you  to  remember  that  on 


RHODE   ISLAND  227 

that  plantation  Eli  Whitney  invented  the  cotton- 
gin  and  so  changed  the  history  of  the  world. 

And  when  you  come  to  spend  your  six  months 
in  Rhode  Island,  do  not  forget  to  find  out  Green- 
wich, which  was  the  home  of  the  Greenes,  and 
spend  a  night,  if  you  please,  at  the  ''Bunch  of 
Grapes."  Or  go  down,  if  you  please,  to  hear  the 
boys  recite  their  Virgil  in  Greenwich  Academy. 
And  for  one  more  person  in  Rhode  Island,  let 
me  remind  you  of  the  charming  story  of  John 
Carter  Brown,  the  millionaire  who  was  willing 
to  be  linked  with  the  despised  and  rejected  John' 
Brown  of  Harper's  Ferry. 


Fort  Connanicut,  R.I. 


CHAPTER  VII 
CONNECTICUT 

EvEEY  political  advance,  every  sane  constitu- 
tion of  government,  every  crisis,  and  every  step 
taken  for  human  freedom  goes  to  the  mainte- 
nance of  happy  homes.  This  is  George  Frisbie 
Hoar's  central  statement.  For  us, 
the  laws  of  Alfred,  Magna  Charta, 
the  fight  at  Naseby,  the  Bill  of 
Rights,  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, Constitutional  Govern- 
ment the  Union  of  States,  all 
have  meant  that  men  should  have  Happy  Homes. 
Connecticut  has  perhaps  worked  her  name  into 
history  as  the  state  which  is  most  successful 
in  this  business.  Compare  Switzerland  with  her 
in  that  line,  if  you  choose.  Compare  Vermont. 
But  Connecticut  is  older  than  Vermont,  and  her 
history  from  the  beginning  has  been  the  history 

228 


CONNECTICUT 


229 


of  groups  of  men  who  came  together  in  different 
places,  and  hved  together,  and  made  laws,  each 
community  for  itself,  simply  that  they  might 
have  happy  homes  —  Home  Rule.    You  see,  they 


Captain  Wadsworth  coxcealixg  the  Charter  of  Coxxecticut. 

have  as  yet  no  piling  up  of  people  in  prison  cells 
called  '^ apartments,"  nor  crowding  together  in 
barracks  called  '' tenements"  —  or  they  have  not 
many  such.  I  have  heard  a  man  say  that  in  their 
largest  city  —  in  Xew  Haven  or  in  Hartford  —  a 
man  can  get  more  out  of  life  than  he  can  in  any 
other  city  in  the  world.  I  am  not  sure  but  this 
is  true. 


230      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

The  ''land  of  steady  habits,"  people  used  to 
say ;  and  before  they  said  that  they  used  to  make 
up  absurd   codes  and  say  that   they  were  the 
''Blue  Laws  of  Connecticut."     These  "Blue  Law" 
codes,  as  they  were  printed,  were  fictions ;  but  the 
fiction  itself  implies  what  is  true  —  that  in  the 
making  of  laws  in  their  little  assemblies  these 
people  always  had  the  fundamental  idea  of  Right. 
It  was  not  for  expediency,  it  was  not  for  profit, 
but  it  was  to  fulfil  the  law  of  the  Living  God, 
that  the  first  generation  legislated.     Well,  from 
such  a  little  state  as  that  large  things  have  fol- 
lowed.    The  Western  Reserve  in  Ohio  was  a  new 
Connecticut,  where  the  land  was  fertile  and  the 
winters  were  not  cold,  where  every  seed  would 
bear  fruit   an   hundred    fold.     And    Connecticut 
may  well  claim  the  credit  for  what  the  W^estern 
Reserve  has  done:     in  our  own  time,  for  Gid- 
dings   and    Hayes   and    Garfield    and   Grant,  — 
I  must  not  say,  for  the  Church  of  Latter-Day 
Saints,  which  I  suppose  the  Western  Reserve 
perhaps  would  be  glad  to  forget.     Mr.  Calhoun 
once  said  that  he  remembered  a  session  of  the 


CONNECTICUT 


231 


National  House  of  Representatives  when  nearly 
half  of  the  members  of  the  House  were  gradu- 
ates of  Yale  College  or  natives  of  Connecticut. 


The  Charter  Oak. 


I  think  the  minority  of   such  people  was  only 
five  less  than  the  majorit}'. 

Somewhere  in  the  fifties  of  the  last  century  a 
French  gentleman  called  on  me  who  had  been 
sent  out  from  France  by  Louis  Napoleon,  or 
somebody,  to  study  American  education.    As  in 


232      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

duty  bound,  he  had  gone  first  into  Canada.  He 
had  learned  all  he  could  about  education  in  Can- 
ada, and  then  he  had  been  attracted,  as  La  Salle 
was,  to  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi,  and  he  had 
''done"  the  ancient  Louisiana;  that  is,  he  had 
gone  through  all  the  states  of  our  Middle  West 
on  what  people  call  an  "educational"  visit.  He 
had  reserved  New  England  for  the  end.  And  he 
said  to  me :  "Everywhere  I  found  that  the  teachers 
in  the  American  schools,  whether  of  Canada  or 
the  Mississippi  Valley,  are  from  two  provinces  — 
Massachusetts  and  Connecticut.  I  said  to  myself, 
This  is  unheard  of  in  history  —  that  all  the  people 
in  a  large  nation  shall  be  taught  by  teachers  from 
two  of  its  smallest  subdivisions.  And  I  asked  for 
the  statistics  for  the  birth  of  the  teachers,  and 
nobody  knew  anything  about  it.  But  I  said. 
When  I  come  to  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts 
I  can  obtain  the  statistical  information  on  this 
subject.  And  now  I  have  come  here  nobody 
knows  an;yi;hing  about  it  and  nobody  cares." 

I  promised  to  provide  for  him  some  sort  of 
official  report  on  this  business,  and  so  I  asked  a 


CONNECTICUT 


233 


dear  old  sachem,  a  near  friend  of  mine,  how  many 
of  the  young  people  of  his  particular  town,  when 
they  left  school,   began  as  teachers  somewhere 


Oliver  Ellsworth. 
An  eminent  Connecticut  statesman  and  jurist. 

or  other.  He  heard  me  with  some  impatience, 
and  then  said,  '^AMiy,  all  of  them,  of  course!" 
This  exclamation  of  his  corresponds  quite  nearly 
with  what  at  one  time  was  the  Southern  impression 


234      TARKY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

regarding  the  New  England  schoolmaster.  He 
was  a  Connecticut  man.  In  the  southern  part 
of  the  nation  there  is  many  an  old  joke  or  epi- 
gram or  anecdote  which  belongs  to  the  period 
when  a  Connecticut  Yankee  was  spoken  of  as 
talking  through  his  nose  and  rolling  his  R's  and 
''teaching  school." 

One  may  say  in  passing  that  that  abominable 
expression  is  pure  Yankee,  and  it  is  heard  nowhere 
but  in  the  purest  Yankee  literature. 

In  our  day  Connecticut  feels,  as  all  the  rest  of 
New  England  feels,  the  wave  of  European  and 
Canadian  emigration.  The  old-line  rulers  of 
Connecticut,  the  sons  of  her  own  soil  who  grew 
up  used  to  home  rule,  are  worried  more  or  less 
by  finding  voters  who  neither  know  nor  care 
whether  they  live  in  Connecticut  or  in  Dakota 
so  far  as  history  goes.  They  are  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  but  do  not  know  what  the  three 
vines  on  the  seal  of  Connecticut  mean,  nor  who 
invented  the  motto  of  the  state  of  Connecticut. 
But,  for  all  that  and  all  that,  they  retain  stead- 
fastly in  Connecticut  some  of  the  old  stand-by 


CONNECTICUT  235 

habits  of  home  rule.     It  is  worth  while  to  say  this 
if  I  am  writing  for  people  who  come  from  the  West 


Jonathan  Tkimisull,  (ii»vEKXou  of  Tonxki  tklt.  17<i'.>-1783. 
Said  to  have  been  the  origiual  "  Brother  Jonathan." 

and  South  to  enjoy  the  seashore  at  Watch  Hill,  at 
Saybrook,  at   New  Haven,  or  anywhere  on  the 


236      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

Sound.  We  cannot  do  enough  to  awaken  local 
pride  by  the  study  of  local  history  in  regions 
which  are  inhabited  by  people  who  have  no  local 
pride  and  know  nothing  of  local  history.  I  have 
said  this  whenever  I  could  in  public  schools  and 
in  these  papers. 

Our  newspapers  would  be  a  great  deal  better 
if  some  of  the  people  who  wrote  for  them  knew 
more  of  the  traditions,  even  the  language,  of 
five  thousand  different  centres  of  American  life. 

Remember,  for  instance,  that  in  that  critical 
struggle  of  the  Revolution  which  we  like  to  go 
back  to,  there  was,  strictly  speaking,  no  revolution 
in  Connecticut;  every  form  of  government  went 
on  without  a  break  of  a  hair,  as  it  had  done  before. 
The  elections  were  the  old  colonial  elections. 
Governor  Trumbull  was  chosen  as  every  other 
Governor  had  been  chosen  in  every  other  Connect- 
icut election  from  the  beginning.  Randolph 
and  some  of  the  other  English  Governors  were 
commissioned  in  1680  as  Governors  of  New  Eng- 
land, but  they  exercised  no  power  in  Connecticut 
except  perhaps  sending  a  catch-poll  to  hunt  up 


CONNECTICUT  237 

a  fugitive.  When  the  Revohition  came,  Connect- 
icut had  her  Governor  and  her  army;  she  knew 
how  to  commission  her  officers  and  to  arm  her 
troops.  Ethan  Allen  took  Ticonderoga  in  1775, 
and  told  the  commander  that  he  did  it  in  the  name 
of  the  great  Jehovah  and  the  Continental  Con- 


Ethan  Allen  at  Ticondeki 


gress.  This  was  a  very  imaginative  use  of  lan- 
guage. The  only  commission  he  had  was  from 
the  state  of  Connecticut,  and  she  used  such  power 
exactly  as  she  had  used  it  in  commissioning 
colonels  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  years. 

Chastellux,    who    was    Rochambeau's    favorite 
aide,  naturally  had  many  occasions  in  the  Revo- 


238  TARRY   AT   HOINIE   TRAVELS 

lution  to  cross  from  Newport  to  the  Hudson  and 
eventually  to  Yorktown  and  back  again.  The 
journey  was  always,  if  you  will  observe,  on  horse- 
back. Chastellux  says  early  in  his  book  that  in 
all  the  time  when  he  had  been  in  America  he  had 
never  seen  a  man  of  military  age  who  had  not 
served  against  King  George.  This  is  good  testi- 
mony as  to  what  Connecticut  was.  It  shows 
the  other  side  of  the  appeals  we  have  from  Wash- 
ington to  '^Brother  Jonathan"  when  he  wanted 
troops  of  a  sudden;  and  the  admirable  military 
records  of  Connecticut,  which  have  been  so  well 
printed  and  edited,  show  how  Connecticut  be- 
came ready  to  answer  such  appeals.  When 
in  1776  Washington  was  sure  he  must  fortify 
New  York  harbor  he  sent  the  Connecticut 
General  Ward,  the  same  who  had  been  at  Louis- 
burg,  to  garrison  the  city  with  his  Connecticut 
men.  And  afterwards  it  was  Knowlton,  who 
was  killed  within  the  limits  of  our  Central  Park, 
who  led  the  Connecticut  regiment  that  day  of 
which  Washington  said  in  a  general  order  that  the 
behavior  of  this  corps  was  worthy  of  any  army 


CONNECTICUT  239 

in  any  time.  My  kinsman  Hale  belonged  there, 
but  he  was  in  prison  in  New  York,  if  indeed  he 
were  not  already  dead. 

I  forget  which  of  the  French  gentlemen  it  is 


Hartford. 
From  an  old  engraving. 

who  tells  that  nice  story  about  Greene's  early 
training.  Rochambeau,  with  a  great  staff,  was 
riding  across  country  when  somebody's  horse's 
feet  wanted  attention.  So  they  stopped  at  a 
Connecticut  town  and  sent  for  a  blacksmith. 
While  the  blacksmith  was  at  work  some  one  asked 
Rochambeau  what  he  ''did  ter  hum."  Now 
the  truth  is  that  in  times  of  peace  a  French 


240      TARKY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

marechal  of  Louis  XVI.'s  Court  did  not  do  much 
after  he  had  fanned  young  ladies  or  offered  snuff 
to  princes.  But  Rochambeau  answered  that  he 
was  a  Marechal  de  France.  Then  the  curious 
Yankee  followed  up  his  questioning  by  asking 
what  marechal  meant,  and  some  very  bright 
English-speaking  man  on  the  staff  answered  that 
marechal  meant  blacksmith.  This  pleased  the 
Yankee.  ''It's  an  excellent  trade/'  he  said; 
''it's  an  excellent  trade.  Our  General  Greene  is 
a  blacksmith." 

I  have  intimated  in  another  article  that  if 
you  will  go  up  into  northwest  Connecticut,  into 
the  neighborhood  of  Canaan  Falls,  you  will  find 
Asaph  Hall,  the  same  who  discovered  the  moons 
of  Mars,  and  he  will  show  yoa  the  glories  of 
hills  and  valleys  and  waterfalls  on  this  earth. 
If  you  will  spend  a  week  or  two  at  Norwich  — 
they  call  it  the  Rose  City  —  you  will  find  a  group 
of  charming  people  who  would  never  let  me  name 
them,  and  you  would  have  a  chance  to  see  how 
an  independent  town  governs  itself  and  how 
all  the  delights  of  the  highest  civilization  may 


CONNECTICUT 


241 


be  found  without  the  clatter  and  frills  of  smoke 
and  dust  of  a  great  city.  In  Hartford,  as  I  said, 
or  in  New  Haven,  men  say  that  you  can  get  more 
out  of  life  in  twenty-four  hours  than  you  can 
anywhere  else  in  the  world.     This  is  sure,  that 


New  Haven,  from  Ferry  Hill. 
From  an  old  eugraving. 

in  either  of  these  places,  if  you  sigh  for  a  crowd, 
you  may  go  to  New  York  in  three  hours.  If  you 
sigh  for  the  wilderness,  the  White  Mountains 
and  the  Adirondacks  are  not  much  farther  away. 
I  was  at  New  Haven  on  the  second  centennial 
of  the  beginning  of  the  college.  It  was  a  good 
time  to  see  the  matchless  loyalty  of  the  different 


242      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

classes  as  they  made  rendezvous  in  their  old 
home.  Wherever  you  meet  these  men  it  is 
interesting  to  see  how  they  really  think  that  there 
is  no  other  university  in  the  world  than  theirs. 
They  have  a  fine  quotation  from  something  in 
an  original  document  which  says  that  the  college 
is  created  "for  the  bringing  up  of  men  who  may 
be  of  service  to  the  state."  ^  I  was  pleased  the 
other  day,  when,  in  trying  to  find  out  something 
about  their  Governor  Hopkins,  one  of  the  patrons 
of  Harvard  College  while  there  was  yet  no  Yale 
College,  I  found  the  same  expression.  He  died 
in  1659  in  London,  and  in  his  will  endowed  some 
New  England  academies  and  gave  to  Harvard 
College  the  money  with  which  to  this  hour  she 
gives  the  "  Deturs  "  every  year  to  deserving  pupils. 
Worthy  remark,  is  it  not,  that  the  money  which 
he  left,  which  was  distributed  to  the  legatees  about 
the  time  of  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht,  now  yields  one 
hundred  per  cent  annually  for  the  uses  of  this 
trust?    Remember  this,   ye  gentlemen  of  Con- 

'  Cromwell,  in  giving  counsel  for  the  education  of  his  sons, 
speaks  of  service  to  the  state  as  one  of  the  purposes  to  be  kept 
in  mind. 


243 


CONNECTICUT  24.-) 

necticut  who  live  at  home  at  ease,  when  you 
send  down  for  j'oiir  friend  to  ride  up  from  liis 
office,  and  make  your  will.  Men  die,  but  uni- 
versities, they  have  a  good  chance  to  live.  There 
are  many  Hopkinses  in  America.  I  wish  that 
some  one  of  them  would  tell  me  where  our  Gov- 
ernor Edward  Hopkins  was  born  —  not  in  Shrews- 
bury, as  Cotton  Mather  said  he  was.  Was  it  in 
Ecton? 

It  was  thirty  years  ago  that  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  graduates  of  Yale  College  said  to 
me  that  it  had  a  great  advantage  over  other  institu- 
tions because  it  pleased  the  Lord  Ciod  always  to 
send  into  the  world  exactly  the  right  person  to 
be  president  at  precisely  the  tune  when  he  was 
needed.  This  prophecy  of  his  has  been  confii-med 
as  the  generation  has  gone  by. 

I  was  about  to  say  that  I  had  two  grandfathers 
in  Yale  College  in  the  seventies  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Nathan  Hale,  whose  statue  looks  out 
on  Broadway,  was  not  my  grandfather.  He  never 
had  any  children,  but  he  was  the  brother  of  my 
grandfather  Enoch  Hale,  and  they  were  together 


24G 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


in  college.     Nathan  Hale  was  only  a  little  more 
than  a   year  younger  than  my  grandfather.     I 


Lyman  BKEf  hkr. 


have  the  letter  in  which  their  father,  Richard 
Hale,  told  them  that  their  mother  had  made  cloth 
enough  for  their  winter  clothes  and  one  of  them 


CONNECTICUT  247 

might  ride  over  to  Coventry  to  be  mea-sured  for 
both.  Nathan  Hale  took  a  leading  part  in  the 
''Beggar's  Opera"  when  his  society  acted  it  before 
the  college  government  of  that  day.  The  tradi- 
tion says  that  his  notes  for  that  mysterious  \asit 
to  Xew  York  which  ended  his  life  were  written 
in  Latin,  and  that  he  had  appeared  in  New  York 
as  a  Connecticut  schoolmaster. 

^[y  children  have  a  great  many  more  Yale  ances- 
tors than  I.  Bright  and  wise  men  go  to  Hartford 
for  their  wives,  and  I  followed  that  good  example. 
So  L\Tnan  Beecher  comes  into  our  line,  and  so  it 
is  that  the  later  Beechers,  who  did  their  duty  so 
well  a  generation  ago,  are  Connecticut  born  or 
bred.  I  do  not  remember  if  this  story  of  Roxana 
Beecher  has  ever  slipped  into  print.  ^Mien  she 
and  her  husband  were  young  married  people 
on  Long  Island,  a  member  of  the  parish  gave  to 
her  what  I  suppose  was  the  Edinburgh  Cj'clopaedia 
as  a  present.  AATien  the  young  family  moved 
up  into  the  mountains  of  Litchfield  County,  the 
cyclopaedia  went  with  them.  ^Mien  the  fu'st 
winter  revealed  to  them  the  severities  of  that 


248 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


high  altitude,  Mrs.  Beecher  studied  the  pictures 
of  Russian  stoves  in  the  cyclopiedia  and  con- 
structed the  first  of  such  comforts  for  the  par- 
sonage.    As  I  write  these  words  I  remember  that 

John  Pierpont, 
the  poet,  who 
moved  from 
Litchfield  to 
Boston  at  about 
that  time,  in- 
vented a  new 
stove  which  he 
put  upon  the 
market,  and 
when  the  eccle- 
siastical council 
was  called  to  de- 
termine whether 
he  had  or  had  not  done  things  which  a  minister 
should  not  do,  the  invention  of  this  stove  came 
in  among  the  complaints  of  his  enemies.  Minis- 
ters ought  not  to  invent  stoves  any  more  than 
they  ought  to   write    poems   for  theatres.     Yet 


John  Pierpont. 


CONNECTICUT 


249 


I  remember  in  later  daj's  Dr.  Bushnell  invented 
a  furnace  and  no  one  took  exception. 

If  you  want  to  liaA'e  a  pleasant  summer  home 
and  at  the  same  time  be  within  an  easy  ride  of 
New  York,  you 
will  n()t  go  wrong 
if  you  look  up  a 
house  in  that 
same  Litchfield. 
The  famous  Gun- 
nery is  not  far 
away.  The  won- 
derful waterfall 
at  Bash  Bish  is 
not  far  away.  I 
believe  that  is 
within  the  pres- 
ent line  of  New  York.  It  was  once  in  what 
they  called  Boston  Corner  and  was  part  of 
Massachusetts.  But  as  no  ]\ la ssachu setts  sheriff 
could  arrest  a  man  in  Boston  Corner  without 
having  to  carry  him  through  New  York  or  Con- 
necticut as  they  went  to  the  jail,  Boston  Corner 


Bash  Bish  Falls. 


250 


TAllRY  AT   HOME   TRAVELS 


seemed  likely  to  become  a  place  without  law, 
and  we  Massachusetts  people  gladly  added  it  to 
the  territory  of  New  York,  though  we  have  not 
much  territory  to  spare. 

New  England's  first  war,  one  is  sorry  to  say, 
was  in  Connecticut,  and  the  savage  for  the  first 


Destruction  of  the  Pequots. 

time  knew  who  his  master  was  when  the  train- 
bands stormed  the  palisades  at  Mystic. 

Old  Dr.  Dwight,  President  of  Yale  College, 
wrote  the  first  guide-book  of  New  England,  and 
that  is  excellent  reading  to  this  day.  I  have 
spoken  of  it  already.  In  early  life,  when  he  was 
in  his  poetical  vein,  he  wrote  "  The  Conquest  of 
Canaan,"  and  when  Washington  and  the  army 
were  besieging  Boston  in  1775  and  1776  the  Yale 


Dk.  Tijiothy  Dwight. 


251 


CONNECTICUT  253 

College  tutor  came  to  camp  and  modestly  asked 
the  different  gentlemen  there  to  subscribe  for 
the  printing  of  his  poem.  My  great-uncle,  Nathan 
Hale,  was  there,  a  heutenant  on  Winter  Hill. 
He  had  told  his  men  that  they  should  have  all 
his  pay  as  bounties  if  they  would  enlist  when 
their  terms  expired.  But  all  the  same  he  sub- 
scribed for  '^The  Conquest  of  Canaan."  Alas! 
before  the  book  came  to  the  press  Hale  was  dead. 
Dear  Dr.  Dwight,  as  he  was  to  be,  wrote  in  these 
additional  lines  in  memory  of  his  pupil-patron :  — 

"  So,  when  fair  Science  strove  in  vain  to  save, 
Hale,  doubly  generous,  found  an  early  grave," 

and  so  on. 

In  the  same  poem,  I  forget  how.  Dr.  Dwight 
brings  in  the  Connecticut  River.  How  it  got  into 
''The  Conquest  of  Canaan"  is  not  of  much  im- 
portance, but  it  is  here  that  he  says :  — 

"  No  watery  gleams  through  fairer  valleys  shine. 
Nor  drinks  the  sea  a  lovelier  stream  than  thine." 

At  that  moment  the  only  streams  which  he  could 
have  seen  were  the  North  River,  the  Pawtuxet 


254      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

River,  theCharles  River,  and  possibly  the  Merrimac. 
But  we  will  grant  him  a  poet's  privilege  and 
even  if  we  have  seen  a  thousand  other  streams 
drunk  up  b}^  the  sea,  we  will  stand  by  Dr.  D wight. 
I  am  afraid  that  dear  Dr.  Dwight  is  more  often 
spoken  of  now  as  the  President  of  the  college 
than  as  the  leading  poet  of  his  time.  But  Con- 
necticut people  in  particular  and  their  descendants 
of  two,  three,  and  four  generations  ought  not 
to  forget  his  verses.  As  I  go  over  the  Railway 
to-day  I  am  almost  sorry  to  see  that  Stafford 
Springs  is  becoming  a  great  manufacturing  town. 
But  the  dear  old  hotel  where  the  invalids  of  a 
century  ago  repaired  in  their  own  carriages  with 
their  own  spans  of  horses  and  their  own  negro 
drivers  is  still  extant,  and,  if  you  will  ask  at  the 
right  place,  they  will  show  you  the  sign-board 
which  used  to  be  displayed  over  the  bath-house 
with  this  verse  of  Dr.  Dwight 's :  — 

"  O  health,  thou  dearest  source  of  bliss  to  man, 
I  woo  thee  here,  here  at  this  far-famed  Spring. 
Oh,  may  I  ere  long  welcome  th}^  return  ! 
Irradiate  my  countenance  with  thy  beams, 
And  plant  thy  roses  on  my  pallid  cheeks  I " 


255 


COi^NECTICUT  257 

To  tell  the  whole  truth,  I  never  think  of  Dr. 
Dwight  as  the  theologian  encountering  Voltaire 
and  Volney  in  the  lists  of  battle,  but  as  a  clear 
old  poet  with  the  roses  of  Stafford  Springs  beam- 
ing on  his  cheeks  once  pallid. 

As  they  are  finding  radio-activity  in  mineral 
springs  just  now,  will  not  some  one  ride  over  from 
Hartford  and  see  how  much  there  is  at  Stafford  ? 

Samuel  Taylor  Maynard,  the  accomplished 
creator  of  the  school  of  agriculture  at  Amherst, 
said  to  me  once  that  whenever  Massachusetts 
wanted  to  raise  her  own  breadstuffs,  she  could 
do  it  in  the  valley  of  the  Connecticut;  and  I  do 
not  dare  say  how  much  leaf  tobacco  the  valley 
of  the  Connecticut  will  send  to  the  market  this 
year  —  the  best,  I  believe,  that  the  market  will 
have  to  offer. 

It  is  to  us  people  who  live  in  Massachusetts 
Bay  an  interesting  thing  to  see  that  from  the 
very  beginning  we  have  depended  on  the  West 
for  our  bread.  ''Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread, 
Good  God,  and  we  will  send  for  it  wherever 
Thou  shalt  require."     Our  first   Governor,  John 


258      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

Winthrop,  had  to  send  back  to  England  for  meal 
and  corn  by  the  very  ships  which  brought  him 
and  his.  They  arrived  in  England  in  a  time  really 
of  famine.  But  his  friends  executed  his  orders. 
They  bought  meal  of  different  grades  in  the  high- 
est market  of  that  day  and  despatched  the  relief 
ships  as  promptly  as  might  be.  In  the  Lyon,  one 
of  them,  it  is  said  there  arrived  a  certain  Robert 
Hale  to  whom  this  writer  is  much  obliged,  and  a 
certain  Roger  Williams.  The  Lyon  is  the  ship  which 
came  up  the  Bay  when  a  Fast  Day  had  been 
ordered  by  the  Massachusetts  Board  of  Assistants. 
She  broke  open  her  hatches  —  and  the  Board 
ordered  the  Fast  Day  changed  to  a  Thanksgiving 
Day,  the  first  Thanksgiving  Day  known  in  the  Bay. 
That  lesson  was  enough  for  Winthrop,  and  with 
that  spring  (1631)  he  sent  the  first  trading  shallops 
into  this  valley  of  the  Connecticut  to  buy  for  us 
the  grain  which  he  would  turn  into  meal  for 
feeding  his  fifteen  hundred  people  for  the  next 
year.  And  from  that  day  to  this  day  the  Bay 
has  bought  its  breadstuff s  from  the  West.  Just 
now  I  think  an  occasional  car-load  slips  in  from 


CONNECTICUT 


259 


California.  I  know  that  Ventura  County  in 
southern  Cahfornia  supphes  the  baked  beans  for 
my  Sunday  morning  breakfast. 

Here,  then,  is  the  history  of  the  Connecticut 


f7/n^?///A  r7)e  W/Z/ftvf/t'ss,  rmd  itf^on  r7te  seff7f7f>r/i7  of  JTinrZ/hnf ,  ionnf 

Valley.  And  to  this  valley  as  early  as  1634  such 
men  as  Hopkins  and  Haynes  and  Hooker  and 
the  first  pioneers  of  Hartford  crossed  the  wil- 
derness   of    Massachusetts.      Three    weeks     the 


260 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


journey  took,   which   I   take  when  I   choose  in 
three  hours. 

I  wish  some  of  that  bright  set  of  people  that 
they  have  in  Hartford  would  take  time  enough  in 


The  Capitol  at  Hartford. 


winter  to  write  us  a  good  history  of  their  'littery 
fellers/'  the  circle  of  wit  and  learning  and  men  of 
letters  who  lived  in  Hartford  a  hundred  years 
ago.  Why  should  not  Professor  McCook  or  Dr. 
Ferguson  or  dear  Mr.  Clemens  or  Arthur  Perkins 


CONNECTICUT 


261 


or  his  sister  retire  into  their  inner  consciousness 
and  go  into  Miss  He  wins 's  charming  inner  room 
or  rummage  in  the  manuscripts  of  the  alcoves 
of  the  Wadsworth  and  tell  us  more  about  those 
bright  men  who  wrote  such  bright  things  between 


The  Death  of  Captain  Ferrer,  of  the  "Amistad." 
From  a  contemporary  engraving. 

1790  and  1820?  That  capital  ballad,  '^Franklin 
one  night,  cold,  freezing  to  the  skin,"  was  printed 
in  the  Hartford  Courant  of  that  time.  Really, 
it  would  not  be  beneath  the  notice  of  the  Hart- 
ford Courant  to  unveil  to  us  some  of  the  secrets 
of  Connecticut  literature  a  hundred  years  ago. 
They  are  always  having  picturesque  things 
turn  up  in  Connecticut.  There  is  not  in  history 
anything  more  dramatic  than  the  story  of  the 


262      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

Amistad  which  worked  itself  to  the  denouement 
here.  The  Amistad  was  a  slave  ship.  She  had 
brought  from  Africa  to  Havana  a  cargo  of  negroes. 
At  Havana  some  Spanish  planter  bought  the 
cargo,  pretty  much  as  it  stood,  made  perhaps 
some  additions  there,  and  they  were  to  be  carried 
in  the  Amistad  to  his  plantation.  The  poor 
fellows  had  had  enough  of  slave  ships,  and  they 
rose  on  the  Portuguese  crew  and  turned  the  tables. 
The  blacks  were  in  command  and  the  whites  were 
the  prisoners.  Then  where  were  they  to  go? 
Some  divine  inspiration,  I  do  not  know  what, 
bade  them  steer  north.  They  understood  Ameri- 
can politics  better  than  Mr.  Van  Buren  did  who 
was  the  President  at  that  time,  and  they  knew 
that  North  meant  freedom.  So  they  sailed  north 
and  north  and  north  till  a  revenue  cutter  stumbled 
upon  them  off  Long  Island  and  brought  them 
into  a  Connecticut  harbor. 

Who  says  there  is  no  Providence  when  he 
reads  that  Connecticut  farmers  received  these 
poor  waifs  struggling  to  be  free?  Well,  things 
were   not   then   just   what   they  are   now.     Mr. 


RuGEK  Sherman  Baldwin. 


263 


CONNECTICUT  265 

Van  Buren,  a  Northern  man  with  Southern 
principles,  was  President.  He  hated  to  bid  his 
Connecticut  marshal  set  these  people  free.  He 
did  his  very  best  to  have  them  return  to  Cuba. 
Say  what  you  like  to-day  about  him  and  his, 
you  have  to  account  for  that  Amistad  business 
somehow.  But  thanks  to  King  Alfred  and  Runny- 
mede,  John  Davenport,  and  Hooker  here  in  Con- 
necticut, we  have  something  which  is  called 
habeas  corpus,  and  so  our  Amistad  negroes  can 
sue  out  their  habeas  corpus  in  a  Connecticut  court, 
and  so  Martin  Van  Buren  and  the  whole  Southern 
crew  will  be  put  to  trial.  And  Roger  Sherman 
Baldwin  —  a  good  name  for  the  business  —  and 
John  Quincy  Adams,  a  name  as  good,  had  to 
maintain  the  right  of  freedom  in  all  the  courts. 
And  so  at  last  it  comes  to  Washington,  and  the 
crisis  comes  before  the  Supreme  Court.  Send 
over  to  the  Public  Library  and  get  John  Quincy 
Adams's  diary,  which  tells  the  story  of  that  trial. 
Adams  had  not  appeared  in  court  since  he  was 
a  youngster.  Now  he  had  the  freedom*  of  fifty- 
three  men  to  maintain,  and  he  had  a  court  half  of 


266 


TARKY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 


whom  had  been  appointed  by  such  men  as  Van 
Buren  and  Jackson  hked  to  put  into  it  —  South- 
ern men  with  Southern  principles.  The  morning 
comes  of  the  day  of  decision,  and  as  John  Quincy 

Adams  rises  from 
his  bed  they  bring 
!.im  a  newspaper 
which  announces 
to  him  that  the 
night  before  one 
of  the  leading 
Southern  judges 
has  died  of  apo- 
plexy. In  that 
death  the  balance 
of  the  court  is 
changed,  and  the 
fift3'-three  ])lack 
men  were  set  free.  Their  children  are  freemen 
to-day  in  the  valley  of  the  Congo.  Let  one  of 
my  young  friends  who  wants  a  theme  for  a  trag- 
edy try  his  hand  on  this  story. 

Do  not  tell  me  that  what  Mrs.  Richmond  says 


Chahles  Goodyear. 


John  Quincy  Adams. 
From  the  painting  by  Edward  D.  Marchant,  1847,  in  the  New  York  Historical 

Society. 

267 


CONNECTICUT 


269 


of  workshops  does  not  admit  of  poetry  or  dramatic 
incident.  Take  such  an  invention  as  that  of 
Goodyear's   india-rubber,    born,    bred,    and   per- 


fected  here  in  Connecticut.  Find  somebody 
to  tell  you  the  story  of  the  growth  of  that  mustard- 
seed  into  comfort  for  the  whole  earth,  so  that  the 
Norwegian  girl  who  is  picking  her  way  across 


270 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


a  peat  bog  at  the  head  of  a  fjord  would  bless  Mr. 
Goodyear  and  his  wife  and  his  children  if  she  knew 
to  whom  she  owed  her  dry  feet  of  that  morning. 


General  Putnam. 
From  the  painting  by  Wilkinson. 


Go  over  to  Salisbury  and  wake  up  some  of  the 
memories  of  the  times  when  they  stamped  our  first 
copper  cents,  or  when  Knox  bade  them  cast 
cannon  and  they  did  so.    They  say  dear  Roger 


CONNECTICUT 


271 


Sherman  was  a  shoemaker.  I  do  not  know,  but 
I  do  know  that  every  central  suggestion  in  the 
American  Constitution,  ''the  wisest  work  of 
men's  hands  that  was  ever  struck  off  in  so  short 


General  Putnam's  Feat  at  Horse  Neck. 
From  an  old  engraving. 

a   time,"   is   the   suggestion   of   this   shoemaker, 
Roger  Sherman. 

There  is  a  kind  of  promptness  about  these 
people  which  comes  out  in  the  most  charming 
way  in  history.  As  it  happened,  and  I  have 
always  been  glad  of  it,  I  was  in  the  room  with 
Grant  when  somebody  told  him  a  story  how,  six 


272 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


months  before  Lexington,  General  Gage  seized  a 
powder-house  of  ours  in  sight  of  Beacon  Hill,  and 
how  the  news  ran  like  wildfire  down  into  Connecti- 
cut, and  how,  without  any  order  from  any  Gov- 


Putnam's  Wolf  Den. 


ernor,  the  freemen  of  the  town  in  which  Grant's 
grandfather  lived  marched  to  the  relief  of  Boston, 
and  how  his  grandfather  was  among  them.  That 
is  the  sort  of  story  which  you  can  pick  up  any 
day  in  any  town,  if  you  will  go  to  the  right  per- 
son and  if  you  care  about  the  realities  of  history. 


273 


CONNECTICUT  275 

Take  Pomfret  and  Israel  Putnam.  What 
boy  does  not  remember  the  wolf's  den  ?  Pomfret 
is  well  known  now  by  hundreds  of  people 
who  find  it  a  pleasant  summer  home,  as  well  as 
by  other  hundreds  who  live  there.  The  cave  in 
which  Israel  Patnam  killed  the  wolf  is  still  a 
cave  where  a  wolf  could  be  killed  if  a  man  with 
a  gun  entered  behind  him.  And  who  is  there  of 
imaginative  turn  who  will  be  much  distressed 
if  it  prove  that  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  have 
somewhat  exaggerated  the  perils  of  the  position? 

Why  one  of  the  early  Hales  went  to  Connecticut 
I  do  not  know.  All  I  do  know  is  that  in  1634 
people  whose  name  begins  with  H  —  Haynes, 
Hopkins,  and  Hooker  —  went  over  and  estab- 
lished Hartford;  and  now  I  know  that  if  you 
go  to  Glastonbury  you  will  be  glad  to  make  a 
visit  to  the  great  peach  plantation  of  Howard 
Hale,  whose  peaches  one  or  two  hundred  thousand 
of  my  readers  have  eaten  since  last  June. 

In  the  Civil  War  we  had  in  New  England  a 
little  company  of  men  who  were,  so  to  speak,  the 
''literary  bureau"  of  the  time.     I  could  set  type 


276      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

and  was  son  of  an  editor,  so  it  was  my  good  for- 
tune to  sit  in  their  eouncils,  and  another  person 
who  sat  in  their  councils  was  a  man  named  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson.  Well !  pretty  much  every 
Connecticut  man  w^ho  was  worth  his  salt  was 
off  with  Hawley  (observe  H  again)  and  the  rest 
lugging  a  musket  around  Florida  or  somewhere 
else  among  our  old  masters.  So  the  political 
canvass  in  Connecticut  of  that  summer  devolved 
on  old  gentlemen  who  were  too  old  to  lug  muskets. 
And  so  it  was  that  the  literary  bureau  had  its 
part  to  play,  and  so  it  was  that  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson  wrote  two  little  tracts  for  that  canvass. 
One  of  them  is  a  very  good  picture  of  what  we  gain 
in  daily  life  becavse  there  is  no  custom-house  at 
the  frontier  of  every  state.  Look  among  your 
old  pamphlets,  my  dear  cousins,  and  find  that 
tract  without  the  author's  name.  It  is  by  the 
"Buddlia  of  the  West,"  the  ''New  England  Plato." 


CHAPTER   VIII 
NEW   YORK 

This  series  of  papers  began  in  the  counsels 
of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gentle  Reader.  As  it  happens, 
they  end  in  the  same  counsels. 

At  that  house  they  go  to  bed  at  9.30.  It  was 
now  five  minutes  before  nine.  He  had  just  been 
reading  to  her  Mr.  Hale's  paper  about  Connecti- 
cut in  The  Outlook.  She  said,  ''The  trouble  about 
Mr.  Hale  is  that  he  always  supposes  that  other 
people  can  do  what  he  does.  He  has  been  at  the 
top  of  Katahdin  and  at  the  top  of  Mount  Washing- 
ton and  at  the  top  of  Mansfield  and  at  the  top  of 
Wachusett.  He  has  been  on  Ingham  Peak  in 
Rhode  Island  and  on  West  Rock  in  Connecticut, 
and  so  he  \wites  as  if  I  had  been  there  or  as  if 
we  could  go  there  as  easily  as  we  can  go  to  bed." 

"Well,"  said  Mr.  Reader  in  reply,  ''I  do  not  see 
why  he  should  not  say  so.     You  and  I  are  younger 

277 


278 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


than  he  is,  and  we  have  this  very  summer  before 
us.     What  do  you  want  to  do  most?" 

She  said  that  she  should  forget  everything  that 
she  had  been  told  about  New  England,  and  that 


she  wanted  something  like  what  her  old  school- 
mistress called  a  ''review."  She  would  like  to 
take  that  review,  and  at  the  same  time  she  would 
like  to  see  something  in  her  tarry  at  home  travels 


NEW  YORK 


279 


which    had   not    been    described   or   represented 
in  The  Outlook. 

''Very  good/'  said  he.  ''Mr.  Hale  begins  by 
saying  that  New  England  is  a  peninsula  with  an 
isthmus  not  two  miles  wide  at  its  western  point. 


I^ANDING    OF    HkNDHIK    HUDS(»X. 


How  should  you  like  to  go  round  by  Bar  Harbor 
and  the  end  of  Nova  Scotia,  see  the  Bells  at  Bad- 
deck,  and  then  go  down  to  the  G;  If  of  St.  Lawrence, 
and  make  a  call  at  one  of  Grenfell's  hospitals  at 
Newfoundland,  take  the  steamer  up  to  Montreal, 
and  then  go  by  rail  to  St.  John's  above  the  Lake; 


280      TAERY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

there  meet  Ransom  with  our  house-boat,  and  so 
go  by  the  house-boat  near  Burgoyne's  hne  to 
Saratoga  ?  You  shall  arrive  at  Saratoga  on  the 
day  of  the  anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Bennington. 
I,  meanwhile,  will  have  my  canoe  painted.  The 
day  you  start  I  will  start,  and  I  will  go  down  the 
Connecticut  and  then  paddle  along  the  Sound  from 
Saybrook  to  New  York  and  put  the  canoe  on  the 
deck  of  the  steamer  which  shall  take  me  to  Albany. 
Then  I  will  paddle  up  to  Cohoes  and  make  a  carry 
at  the  falls  there,  and  so,  on  the  sixteenth  of  August, 
I  will  get  on  the  house-boat  and  I  will  find  you 
all  there.  And  at  the  spot  where  General  Gates 
received  General  Burgoyne's  sword,  I  will  fold 
you  in  my  arms  and  kiss  you,  and  after  that  you 
will  remember  that  New  England  is  a  peninsula 
and  that  you  and  I  have  stood  on  the  neck  which 
connects  it  with  the  mainland." 

These  words  were  spoken  in  their  bungalow 
near  Windsor  in  Vermont  on  the  Connecticut 
River. 

To  all  she  agreed.  Now  you  must  know  that 
they  were  at  the  omnipotent  age.    This  age  is 


NEW   YORK  281 

any  age  between  fourteen  and  ninety-five,  if  only 
you  be  pure  of  mintl,  peaceable,  and  easy  to  be 
entreated.  For  then  you  can  use  omnipotent 
power  if  you  want  to.  In  this  particular  case 
these  young  people  had  been  married  twelve 
years.  He  did  not  drink,  nor  smoke,  nor  play 
at  poker  or  other  games  of  chance.  He  had  no 
yacht,  and  he  disliked  the  stock  market.  She 
loved  him  and  her  children.  Her  French  and 
German  were  better  than  his.  They  lived  in 
the  open  air  every  moment  when  they  could 
escape  "those  prisons  which  we  call  homes." 
So  they  were  always  a  little  beforehand.  He  was 
always  surprised  that  his  bank  balance  was  a 
few  hundred  dollars  better  than  he  thought  it 
would  be.  She  was  constantly  finding  that  her 
dividends  from  the  Green  Consolidated  were 
larger  than  she  expected  they  would  be.  On 
this  occasion  they  parted  from  each  other  for 
nearly  three  weeks'  time  —  the  longest  parting 
they  had  ever  known.  He  told  Ransom  to  have 
the  house-boat  well  scoured  out,  painted  where 
the  paint  was  worn;  he  gave  him  the  money  to 


282      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

buy  two  mules  with,  told  him  he  was  to  have  the 
house-boat  at  Whitehall  on  the  sixth  of  August. 
She  told  old  Ruah/  who  had  had  charge  of  the 
children  ever  since  Nathan  was  born,  that  she 
was  to  put  the   children  on  the  house-boat  at 


CoHOEs  Falls. 

Albany,  and  that  Ransom  would  take  them  all 
to  St.  John's.  Then  she  wrote  Gertrude  Ingham, 
the  same  who  had  been  her  literature  teacher 
at  Vassar  College,  and  asked  her  to  make  the 
voyage  to  Nova  Scotia,  Baddeck,  Newfound- 
land, and  the  St.  Lawrence  with  her.     Gertrude 

*  Ruah  is  short  for  Lo-ru  hamah. 


NEW   YORK  283 

said  she  would  come  up  to  Windsor  and  join 
her. 

Meanwhile,  Mr.  Reader  had  done  as  he  said. 
He  had  given  orders  to  John  Tintoretto,  the  Italian 
who  presided  over  such  things  up  the  river,  to 
paint  the  canoe ;  he  had  sent  down  to  Cocknell's 
for  three  paddles  —  one  long  one  and  two  short 
ones.  He  had  provisioned  the  canoe  for  a  short 
voyage  down  the  Connecticut  River  and  through 
the  Sound,  and  on  the  fatal  Monday  which  the 
gods  provided,  they  started  on  their  way.  You 
see,  when  they  had  this  talk  of  which  you  have 
heard,  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening,  it  was  about 
the  time  when  the  days  were  the  longest.  Before 
July  was  well  advanced  all  these  preparations 
had  been  made  of  which  you  have  been  told. 

So  she  went  to  White  River  Junction,  and  they 
rattled  across  the  country  to  Portland,  with  their 
Outlooks  in  their  hands.  They  refreshed  the 
memory  of  Maine  and  New  Hampshire  as  well 
as  you  can  from  an  express  train.  They  went  to 
Bar  Harbor  by  the  ''Flying  Yankee."  They  did 
not  miss  one  connection  at  the  New  Brunswick 


284 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


St.  John,  or  cO-t  Halifax,  or  at  Baddeck.  At 
Baddeck  they  saw  some  of  Mr.  Bell's  wonderful 
kites  at  Le  Bras  d'Or,  which  is  the  name  of  that 
great  shore  loch  where  a  bath  is  so  charming. 
By   means   known   to   residents  of  that   region, 


Lake  Geokge. 

The  Narrows,  with  Black  Mountain  and  Bolton,  and  the  Hummock  in 

the  foreground. 


they  went  across  to  the  Newfoundland  St.  John's 
and  then  by  great  good  luck  they  joined  Miss 
Merciful  as  she  was  taking  round  some  supplies 
to  a  hospital  in  Anticosti.  Fortune  favors  the 
brave,  and  the  Strathcona  came  along,  and  carried 


NEW   YORK  285 

them  from  that  ship  to  another  on  the  north 
side  of  the  river,  and  then  there  was  a  Govern- 
ment steamer  to  go  that  very  afternoon  up  the 
St.  Lawrence  to  Quebec,  and  of  course  it  happened 
that  Dr.  Abernethy  was  on  board,  to  whom  Dr. 
Grenfell  had  given  them  a  letter. 

When  you  are  at  Quebec,  everything  is  easy 
saihng  to  Montreal.  I  do  not  know  which  of  these 
young  women  is  the  better  traveller.  I  know 
they  always  light  on  their  feet.  They  always 
see  whatever  there  is  to  be  seen,  and  it  does  not 
surprise  me,  therefore,  that  on  the  appointed 
day  and  hour,  as  old  Ransom  stood  on  the  front 
of  the  house-boat,  scolding  and  advising  and 
keeping  an  eye  on  all  the  children  and  instruct- 
ing dear  old  Ruah  on  the  points  where  she  was 
doubtful,  Gertrude  and  Abra  looked  out  each  from 
her  own  window  of  the  cab  which  took  them  from 
the  Prince  Royal  at  Whitehall  down  to  the  canal. 
Great  was  the  joy,  as  you  may  imagine.  The 
children  had  been  more  than  a  fortnight  parted 
from  their  mother.  Ransom  had  nothing  but 
success  to  announce.     Dear  old  Ruah,  with  worthy 


286      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

pride,  said  she  had  not  had  to  give  anybody  any 
medicine,  and  that  they  had  been  good  children 
all  of  them.  Abra  and  Gertrude  went  round  to 
see  the  mules,  patted  them  and  praised  them. 
Without  so  much  as  turning  the  boat  around, 
the  mules  were  taken  round  on  the  tow-path  and 
attached  to  the  other  end  of  the  boat.  The 
cabman  was  paid,  with  a  shilling  extra  to  buy 
candy  for  his  babies,  and  before  they  were  ten 
minutes  older  the  reunited  party  were  going 
south  on  the  Champlain  Canal,  where  the  children 
had  but  just  now,  under  Ransom's  auspices,  been 
travelling  to  the  north.  So  they  found  the  way 
ready  for  them,  and  so  the  mules,  well  pleased, 
led  them  ste])  by  step  from  ''blue  Champlain." 
Old  Ransom  sometimes,  when  they  were  coming 
to  a  lock,  let  the  boy  Nathan  run  along  with  him 
on  the  shore,  finding  wild  roses  and  j^ond  lilies  for 
his  mother. 

Meanwhile,  at  Windsor,  Mr.  Reader  had  taken 
his  own  coat-box  in  his  hand  out  to  the  express- 
office,  had  given  his  instructions  at  the  post-office, 
where   he   found   Tintoretto,   and   walked   down 


287 


NEW   YORK  289 

to  the  river,  rolled  up  his  duster  and  tucked  it 
under  the  front  seat  of  the  canoe,  had  bidden 
Timothy  good-by,  and  pulled  out  into  the  Con- 
necticut. 

'4905,"  he  said  to  himself;  '4t  was  in  1774 
that  John  Ledyard  floated  down  here  from  Dres- 
den College,  as  he  would  have  called  Dartmouth 
College.  That  was  the  beginning  of  the  Nile  and 
Congo  for  him." 

And  for  a  little  relief  he  stretched  himself  out 
in  the  boat,  with  one  paddle  in  the  water,  keeping 
her  head  to  the  south  if  the  river  flowed  south, 
and  east  when  it  flowed  east,  and  west  when  it 
flowed  west.  There  were  places  where  he  could 
run  in  under  the  shade,  but  not  many  such  places 
now.  There  were  one  or  two  long  reaches  where 
he  had  to  paddle  if  he  meant  to  keep  up  a  good 
average  day's  work.  Sometimes  at  nightfall  he 
padlocked  the  canoe  to  a  convenient  post  and 
walked  up  into  the  town.  He  did  this  at  Spring- 
field, and  at  Hartford.  But  five  times  out  of 
six  he  found  some  trees,  where  he  could  roll 
himself  in  a  blanket  and  let  the  sun  and  morning 


290 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


birds  waken  him.  At  New  York  the  day  boat 
people  were  glad  to  take  him  and  the  Water 
Witch  on  board,  and  as  the  passengers  came  down 
he  met  the  Birdsells  and  the  Havilands  and  the 


TiiK  Cai'itul  at  Aluany. 
From  a  photograph  copyrighted  by  G.  P.  Hall  &  Son,  N.  Y.,  1899. 

Schuylers  and  a  dozen  other  of  the  pleasantest 
people  of  the  world,  and  they  were  early  enough 
to  pick  out  good  front  chairs  on  the  upper  deck, 
and  so  a  veiy  happy  day  was  provided  for. 


NEW   YORK 


201 


At  Albany  he  went  up  to  see  what  was  left  of 
dear  Hunt's  picture  of  Anahita ;  he  uncovered  his 
head  reverently  before  the  noble  statue  of  Robert 
Bums;  he  wondered  how  that  man  in  the  public 


Battle    of    Saratoga.      General    Arnold    wounded    in    the 
Attack  on  the  Hessian  Redoubt. 


garden  makes  his  lotuses  and  nymphaeas  grow 
so  much  better  than  Mr.  Reader's  do.  He  called 
on  Mrs.  McElroy,  who  told  him  good  news,  and  an 
hour  before  nightfall  he  walked  down  to  the  land- 
ing to  find  that  the  Water  Witch  was  ready  for 
him.     And  then,  under  the  strokes  of  his  own 


292      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

l)a(ldle  as  he  worked  his  way  up  the  river,  he  should 
an-ive  quite  on  time  to  see  the  only  house-boat 
on  the  Champlain  Canal  and  to  w^ave  his  hand- 
kerchief and  to  jump  on  board. 

It  is  not  part  of  this  series  of  papers  to  give 
local  directions  to  travellers,  which  they  can 
obtain  much  more  to  their  present  point  by  the 
local  guides  and  the  local  guide-books.  Enough 
to  say  that  he  gave  Abra  the  kisses  which  he  had 
]3romised,  that  she  did  not  refuse.  Enough  to 
say  that  he  made  the  little  boy  ride  with  him 
from  one  of  the  streams  which  flows  into  the 
North  River  across  to  one  of  those  which  flows 
into  Lake  Champlain.  Nathan  is  an  intelligent 
little  fellow  who  has  lived  in  the  open  air,  and  was 
made  to  understand  that  this  was  the  isthmus 
of  the  peninsula  of  New  England. 

They  spent  a  whole  day  in  going  over  the  Bur- 
goyne  battle-grounds  with  a  clever  local  guide, 
who  had  provided  Baroness  Riedesel's  journal, 
and  they  read  again  her  pathetic  letters.  He 
told  them  the  stoiy  of  the  mysterious  third  Nathan 
Hale  and  perhaps  mythical  Nathan  Hale.     He 


NEW    YORK 


293 


made  Nathan  commit  to  memory,  so  that  he  could 
declaim  it  to  his  mother  when  they  came  home, 
the  lines  about  the  ''great  surrender,"  how  the 
Brunswick  colors 


'^ll-r^-^^ 


''"mm^ 


Madame  Riedesel. 
From  a  portrait  iu  her  "Memoirs." 

Gayly  had  circled  half  the  world 
Until  they  drooped,  disgraced  and  furled, 
That  day  the  Hampshire  line 


294 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


►Stood  to  its  arms  at  dress  parade, 
Beneath  the  Stars  and  Stripes  arrayed, 

And  Massachusetts  Pine, 
To  see  the  great  atonement  made 

By  Riedesel  and  Burgoyne. 

You  see  he  tried  to  make  the  boy  understand 


General  Burgoyne. 


that  the  battles  at  Saratoga  are  among  Colonel 
Creasy 's  ''Fifteen  Decisive  Battles  of  the  World." 
The  reader  may  go  back  in  these  papers  to  see 


NEW  YORK 


295 


what  is  said  about  this  in  the  chapter  on  \^er- 
mont.  Nathan,  who  understands  a  map,  pointed 
out  to  him  that  the  battles  of  Bennington  were 
fought  on  the  New  York  side  of  the  Vermont 
Hne. 

Possibly  some   enthusiastic   German- American 


Conscription  of  German  Soldiers  for  Service  ix  America. 

will  write  me  a  line  to  say  just  what  the  Bruns- 
wick colors  and  the  Hessian  colors  were  which 
were  '' furled"  at  Saratoga.  We  want  replicas  of 
those  colors  badly  in  the  Old  South  Meeting-House 
in  Boston,  which  is  our  nmseum  of  such  things. 


296  TARRY   AT' HOME   TRAVELS 

But  somehow  no  one  in  Frankfurt  seems  eager 
to  send  them  to  us. 

(In  a  parenthesis  let  me  ask  if  you  happen  to 
know  how  the  Rothschild  fortune  began.  It 
was  when  one  Napoleon  was  driving  the  Elector 
of  Hesse  out  of  his  palace,  and  the  Elector  had 
some  ready  money  by  him.  He  found  a  young 
Jewish  banker  and  placed  his  money  in  his  hands 
at  a  very  low  rate  of  interest.  It  happened  that 
the  Jewish  banker  had  no  opportunity  to  return 
it  till  the  Elector  came  back  after  a  good  many 
years,  and  on  the  profits  on  that  silver  money 
the  Rothschild  fortunes  were  already  well  begun. 
Now,  if  you  please,  that  silver  money  which  the 
Elector  had  in  hand  was  the  identical  store  of 
shillings  and  half-crowns  which  one  George  HI. 
had  paid  this  gentleman  for  the  troops  who  were 
killed  at  Red  Bank,  who  surrendered  at  Benning- 
ton and  again  at  Saratoga,  and  who  spent  the  rest 
of  the  war  as  prisoners  of  war  in  Virginia.  Per- 
haps the  House  of  Rothschild  some  day  will  be 
grateful  enough  for  this  acorn  from  which  grew 
a  great  tree,  to  endow  a  university  for  the  study 


NEW   YORK 


297 


of  the  metaphysics  of  war,  in  one  of  the  Old  Thir- 
teen States.  Saratoga  would  be  a  good  place 
for  it.     There  could  be  a  long  vacation  in  July  and 

V. 


Burgoyne's  Army  on  the  Road  from  Lake  Champlain  to 
Fort  Edward. 


August,  when  visitors  could  reside  in  the  college 
dormitories.) 
No  American  will  go  to  see  the .  battle-grounds 


298 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


of  Saratoga  or  the  place  of  the  capitulation  made 
by  Burgoyne  without  remembering  that,  a  hundred 
years  after,  a  great  American  soldier  died  at 
Mount  McGregor.  Yes,  and  if  any  one  wants 
to  spend  more  time  than  our  young  friends  did. 


Gexkral  (Grant's  Cottage  at  Mount  ^I((;i{K(;or. 

here  is   the   McGregor   House,   and   hard    by  is 
Saratoga  Springs,  and  not  far  away  is  Ballston. 

I  wish  we  could  make  room  and  had  a  right  to 
print  here  the  diaiy  of  Miss  Edes,  a  pretty  Boston 
girl  who  came  to  Ballston  about  a  century  ago 


NEW  YORK 


299 


with  a  great-uncle  or  somebody  who  was  good  to 
her;  and  she  danced  and  perhaps  joined  in  the 
flirtations  of  the  infant  watering-place.  Recol- 
lect that  "Ballston  Spa"  was  a  fashionable  water- 
ing-place  before    Saratoga    was.     Ballston   Spa, 


Ballston  Spa  in  its  Fashionable  Days  (about  1835). 

I  think,  is  still  the  county  seat.  Not  to  go  into 
geology  or  paleontology,  for  the  present  is  more 
than  we  can  handle,  it  will  be  enough  to  say  that 
the  different  wells  and  springs  both  at  Ballston 
and  Saratoga  to-day  are  what  one  ma}'  properly 
call  bilge  water  of  the  early  world.    Fortunately 


300 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


for  us  of  this  time,  the  waters  of  that  day  settled 
in  some  sort  of  underground  lake  at  the  bottom, 
and  so  we  are  able  now  to  drink  water  like  what 
the  megalosaurus  or  the  Carnegiesaurus  and  other 
creatures  of  those  early  formations  drank.     People 


View  of  Saratoga  just  before  the  Middle  of  the  Last 
Century. 

who  are  old-fashioned  enough  to  read  the  ''Last 
of  the  Mohicans"  and  the  ''Pioneers"  will  find 
some  nice  allusions  which  Cooper  made  to  the 
early  outpour  of  the  springs. 

But  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Reader  and  the  children  had 
not  time  to  study  the  geology  or  paleontology 


NEW   YORK  301 

while  they  were  in  that  region,  and  a  day  more 
saw  them  in  their  comfortable  home,  the  house- 
boat, on  their  way  to  Niagara.  They  were  quite 
careless  whether  the  journey  should  last  fifteen 
days  or  five-and-twenty  days.  In  the  open 
air,  with  God's  sky  overhead  and  all  the  time  there 
is,  and  the  good  long  days  of  August,  and  their 
own  good  company,  with  cardinal-flowers  and 
pond-lilies,  not  to  say  an  occasional  sacred  bean 
or  water-chinquapin,  there  was  enough  to  make 
a  good  large  hfe  of  it,  even  if  they  did  not  j^ick 
up  the  morning  newspaper. 

Nine  out  of  ten  of  the  readers  of  these  lines 
have  no  acquaintance  with  the  house-boat  but 
that  which  they  got  from  Mr.  Black's  charming 
story  of  such  a  journey  as  this  in  England.  But 
there  are  still  left  in  America  some  of  our  old 
canals  of  the  last  centuiy,  where  one  can  get 
away  from  cinders  and  smoke  and  dust,  and  have 
the  comforts  of  his  home  and  the  joys  of  open- 
air  life  very  closely  knit  in  with  each  other.  One 
of  the  very  best  of  such  opport\mities  is  that  given 
on  the  Erie  Canal. 


302      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

I  have  done  my  level  best  in  the  last  few  years 
to  place  the  name  of  De  Witt  Clinton  among 
the  names  of  the  American  heroes  in  the  New 


De  Witt  Clinton. 

York  University.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  the 
New  Yorkers  themselves  hardly  seem  to  be  aware 
that  there  was  such  a  man ;  but  all  the  same  there 
was.      De  Witt  Clinton,  of  the  great  house  of 


NEW  YORK  303 

Clinton,  one  of  the  two  great  houses  that  fought 
each  other  in  the  early  politics  of  the  state  of 
New  York,  was  the  leader  of  what  was  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  which  queerly  enough  in  those  days 
was  called  the  Republican  party.  In  1801  he 
became  senator  of  the  United  States.  He  left 
the  Senate  to  be  mayor  of  the  city  of  New  York, 
was  removed  and  reappointed  in  1811,  and  con- 
tinued mayor  till  1815.  He  took  up  early  in 
life  the  policy  of  canal  construction  between  the 
Hudson  and  Lake  Erie  and  Lake  Champlain. 
In  1817  a  bill  was  passed  authorizing  the  work 
at  the  expense  of  the  State.  In  the  same  year 
he  was  chosen  Governor,  and  in  1825  he  had  the 
"felicity  of  being  borne  from  Buffalo  to  Albany  in 
a  barge,  on  the  great  work  with  which  his  name 
is  identified." 

With  the  construction  of  the  Erie  Canal  the 
rapid  development  of  the  states  then  called  the 
Northwestern  states,  which  are  now  the  great 
Middle  states  of  the  country,  became  possible. 
The  success  of  that  canal  was  an  incentive  in 
every  American  state  to  what  used  to  be  called 


304 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


''internal  improvement."  For  these  reasons  I 
should  have  been  glad  if  the  honor,  for  it  is  an 
honor,  of  a  place  among  the  heroes  of  America 
in  the  Hall  of  Fame  could  have  been  awarded  to 
De  Witt  Clinton. 

The  valley  of  the  Mohawk  gives  a  line  so  con- 
venient that  the  suggestion  of  a  canal  was  made 


Route  of  the  Erie  Canal. 

very  early.  There  is  a  story,  undoubtedly  au- 
thentic, of  Washington,  who  knew  from  his  boy- 
hood the  lake  country  to  the  west,  predicting  a 
canal  here  soon  after  the  establishment  of  the  Con- 
stitution. An  attentive  correspondent  tells  me 
that  Washington  invested  money  in  the  Mohawk 
Valley  and  that  many  farms  near  Little  Falls 
are  held  under  deeds  from  him.     Between  the 


4rif      1 


305 


NEW    YOKK 


307 


Hudson  River  unci  the  Lakes  the  highest  summit 
which  is  surmounted  by  the  lockage  of  the  canal 
is  688  feet  above  the  sea.  The  height  of  Lake 
Erie  above  the  Hudson  is  568  feet.  The  flow  of 
the  water  eastward  is  calculated,  I   think,  on  a 


View  OF  the  Erie  Caxal,  at  the  Litti.i    1  u  i  s,  Mohawk  River. 
From  an  engraving  published  in  London  in  1831. 

plan  of  a  moderate  descent  of  half  an  inch  in  a 
mile.  I  believe  the  engineers  to  this  hour  think 
that  the  original  construction  reflected  great  honor 
on  those  self-taught  engineers  who  were  engaged 
in  that  work.  They  managed  to  build  it  for 
seven    million    dollars  —  an    investment    which 


308      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

has  been  repaid  to  the  state  again  and  again 
and  yet  again  by  the  wealth,  not  to  be  calculated, 
which  has  made  the  city  of  New  York  what  it  is 
and  the  state  of  New  York  what  it  is. 

Of  course  the  cargoes  which  move  from  the 
West  to  the  East  on  the  canal-boats  are  much 


Ekie  Canal,  Lockport. 
From  an  early  engraving. 

more  bulky  than  those  which  pass  from  the  East 
to  the  West.  A  dollar's  worth  of  grain  takes 
much  more  room  and  weighs  more  than  a  dollar's 
worth  of  jackknives.  Of  course,  also,  it  takes 
longer  for  a  barge-load  of  grain  to  float  from 


309 


NEW   YORK  311 

Buffalo  to  Albany  under  the  propulsion  of  some 
meditative  mules  than  a  car-load  on  a  railway 
which  travels  by  night  as  well  as  by  day,  with 
one  of  the  giants  of  modern  times  leading  the 
train.  All  the  same,  the  transfer  of  the  food 
of  the  West  to  the  breakfast-tables  of  the  East 
by  the  canal  is  very  cheap,  and  the  canal  holds 
its  own  in  face  of  railway  competition.  So  you 
and  I,  dear  Reader,  if  we  live  in  a  seaport,  ought 
to  be  thankful  for  it,  that  it  settles  for  us  a  good 
many  of  the  questions  as  to  the  cost  of  freight. 

This  is  certain,  that  whoever  prays  for  his 
daily  bread  in  the  morning  owes  a  good  deal  to 
De  Witt  Clinton  and  his  followers,  as  the  years 
go  by.  In  December,  1815,  a  barrel  of  flour  of 
the  best  brand  cost  anybody  in  Boston  nine 
dollars.  The  best  flour  he  can  buy  now  costs 
five  dollars  and  twenty-five  cents.  We  owe  the 
difference  to  the  Erie  Canal.  One  goes  nowa- 
days from  Albany  to  Buffalo  at  the  rate  of  fifty 
or  sixty  miles  an  hour.  When  the  passenger 
service  was  well  organized  on  the  Erie  Canal, 
the  passenger  boats  went  by  day  and  night,  and 


312 


TAREY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


achieved  eighty-five  miles  in  twenty-four  hours, 
on  an  average.  But  the  traveller  of  to-day  does 
not  begin  with  Cohoes  Falls.  He  does  not  see 
where  Sam  Patch  made  his  celebrated  leap,  he 

certainly  does 
not  gather  the 
sacred  bean  of 
India,  nor  does 
his  Uttle  boy 
nm  along  on 
the  tow-path, 
and,  if  he  cap- 
ture  a  frog 
small  enough, 
''     .^;  :  jump  on  board 

the  boat  with 
it    and    make 
Dr.  eliphalet  nott.  mamma     put 

it  in  her  thimble.  Such  are  the  joys  of  such  trav- 
ellers as  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gentle  Reader.  They  do 
not,  however,  make  eighty-five  miles  in  the 
twenty-four  hours,  nor  do  they  pretend  to. 

Dear  Innocents,  they  had  all  the  time  there  is. 


Red  Jacket,  Sagoyewatha. 
From  the  painting  by  Robert  W.  Weir. 
313 


NEW   YORK  315 

This  is  the  phrase  which  Red  Jacket  used  and 
which  Mr.  Emerson  used  to  quote  with  so  much 
humor.  If  anybody  wants  to  know  who  Red 
Jacket  was,  he  was  an  Iroquois  Chief  on  the  hue 
of  this  same  canal.  And  if  anybody  wants  to 
know  when  he  was,  let  him  go  ask  my  dear  sister 
Julia  Ward  Howe,  who  told  me  that  when  she 
was  six  years  old  her  mother  introduced  her  to 
Red  Jacket  in  his  home.  No,  no,  no  !  Abra  and 
her  husband  were  in  no  hurr}-,  the  children  were 
m  no  hurr}',  nor  were  the  mules  in  an}'  hurry. 
From  time  to  time  old  Ransom  affected  to  be  in 
a  hurr}^,  but  really  he  was  not  in  a  hurrj^  I  am 
painfully  aware  that  this  reader  will  not  follow 
their  example,  but  let  us  hope  that  he  is  not  in 
such  a  hurry  that  he  must  cross  the  state  in  five 
hours,  must  ''do"  Niagara  in  five  more,  and 
must  return  to  his  brownstone  house  in  New 
York  by  a  night  train. 

Schenectady?  Yes,  of  course  they  stopped  in 
Schenectady.  They  had  many  pleasant  people 
to  see  in  Schenectady,  they  had  to  hear  the  tradi- 
tions of  Dr.  Nott.     It  was  vacation  time,  so  that 


316  TAERY  AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

they  could  not  see  all  the   pleasant    people,  but 


they  could  refresh  themselves  on  the  historical 
centres.     They  shed  the  right  number  of  tears 


317 


NEW   YORK  319 

over  the  grave  of  Miss  McCrea ;  they  saw  the  Glen 
House  or  the  Saunders  House.  Reader  called  it 
the  Glen  House  and  Abra  called  it  the  Saunders 
House.     Here  are  their  notes  on  Schenectady: — 

''Have  you  not  read  up  about  the  Schenectady 
massacre?  It  is  high  time  you  did.  At  all 
events,  you  will  like  to  go  down  to  the  Saunders 
house,  which  stands  as  a  sort  of  memorial  to 
that  massacre,  although  the  house  which  now 
stands  was  buil'  afterwards.  This  is  the  family 
of  the  Glon.  Perhaps  you  do  not  know  that 
Saunders  and  Glen  are  the  same  word.  This 
family  of  the  Glen,  I  say,  were  always  good 
to  the  Indians.  They  always  had  something 
to  eat  for  the  Indian  tramp,  and  they  never 
fooled  him  by  giving  him  water  too  hot  to 
wash  his  hands  with.  They  w^re  nice  to  him. 
What  happened  then,  when  the  massacre  took 
place,  was  that  the  Glen  family  or  the  Saunders 
family  —  have  it  as  you  like,  though  nobody 
called  them  Saunders  then  —  were  spared,  and 
their  house,  too,  was  not  destroyed. 

''Now,  if  any  student  of  the  higher  criticism 


320 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


wants  to  know  why  Saunders  are  sometimes 
Glens  and  Glens  are  sometimes  Saunders,  4et 
him  read/  as  Mr.  Browning  says.  Some  of  these 
people  went  down  to  Louisiana,  and  one  of  them, 
being   named   Alexander   Saunders,   used   to   be 


Glkns  Falls. 

From  a  photograi^h,  copyrighted,  18!X),  by  S.  R.  Stoddard, 

Glens  Falls,  N.Y. 

called  Sandy  artd  Sanderson  there,  and  was  then 
called  Saunders  of  the  Glen.  When  his  children 
and  his  children's  children  grew  up  and  came 
back  to  Schenectady,  some  of  them  thought 
they  were  Saunders  and  some  of  them  thought 
they  were  Glens,  and  they  chose  their  names 
accordingly. 


NEW   YORK  321 

''It  was  exactly  as  Lafayette  had  six  names 
he  could  call  upon,  and  if  he  did  not  want  to  be 
Lafayette  he  could  be  Motier.  But  you  can  find 
the  Saunders  House  if  you  want  the  Saunders 
House.  If  you  want  memorials  of  the  Glen,  3'ou 
can  go  over  to  Glens  Falls." 

There  are  most  charming  bits  of  family  history, 
Cavalier  and  Puritan,  which  the  Saunders-Glen 
people  of  to-day  have  preserved.  Central  is 
the  interesting  story  of  the  way  in  which  the 
Saunders  house  was  protected  when  the  rest  of 
Schenectady  was  swept  by  the  barbarians. 

As  you  go  west  as  the  Readers  went,  or  on 
either  of  the  railways,  you  can  see  the  pretty 
''chutes"  where  the  Indians  said  the  sun  rolled 
down  as  he  was  approaching  his  setting.  For 
the  benefit  of  the  New  York  Observer,  I  will  say 
that  in  hteral  fact  the  sun  does  not  roll  down  this 
mountain  side;  but  there  are  periods  of  the  year 
near  the  month  of  June  —  trust  me  who  have 
seen  it  —  when  the  sun  hugs  the  mountain  range 
curiously  close,  and  to  the  savages,  who  had  not 
studied  with  Flamsteed,  Langley,  or  Pickering, 


322 


TARRY   AT    HOME   TRAVELS 


it   did  appear   to  roll   down  on    that   toboggan 
slide. 

But  it  would  never  do  to  try  to  tell  what  they 
saw,  nor  will  The  Outlook  care  to  publish  their 
journal  from  one  end  to  the  other.  One  thing 
Mr.  Gentle  Reader  learned  which  he  had  not 
learned  before,  though  I  had  often  told  it  to  him 


Salt  Manufacture  at  Syracuse. 

1.  Solar  Evaporation  or  Salt  Fields.         3.   Interior  of  Salt  Blocks  or  Boiling  Works. 

2.  E.Kterior  of  Salt  Blocks.  4.  State  Pump  House  and  Reservoir. 

—  he  learned  how  this  countiy  is  governed  ]:)y  its 
small  cities  and  its  large  towns.  He  learned  that 
in  such  places  as  Schenectady  and  Utica  and 
Syracuse  and  Batavia  and  Rochester  and  Le 
Roy  and  Buffalo  and  a  hundred  others,  the  public 


NEW  YORK  323 

opinion  of  the  town  is  generally  sound  and  strong, 
and  that  dawned  upon  him  which  I  had  not  been 
able  to  impress  upon  him  in  talking  —  that  a 
great  city  like  New  York  or  Philadelphia  or  Chi- 
cago or  Boston  has  no  such  control  over  the  real 
policy  of  the  country  as  have,  in  the  aggregate, 
such  towns  as  Akron  and  Goshen  and  New  Padua 
and  Runnymede,  which  make  the  public  opinion 
of  Us  the  People.  A  man  learns  this  lesson  very 
well  as  he  goes  from  one  end  of  the  state  of  New 
York  to  the  other.  In  the  Vermont  chapter 
I  spoke  of  a  speech  I  made  in  the  city  of  New 
York  at  a  great  Alpha  Delta  Phi  convention. 
In  that  speech  I  called  attention  to  the  fact  that 
a  member  of  the  lower  house  in  Albany  represents 
about  as  many  people  as  a  member  of  the  English 
Parliament  represents.  Somebody  in  the  audi- 
ence laughed.  I  said:  ''I  am  sorry  that  any 
person  laughs.  The  three  persons  whom  I  recol- 
lect as  members  of  the  legislature  of  New  York 
would  certainly  have  done  honor  to  any  parlia- 
mentary assembh'  in  any  nation  in  any  period 
of  history  since  parliamentary  institutions  took 


324      TAKEY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

on  their  present  form."  The  three  people  whom 
I  had  in  mind  when  I  spoke  were  Andrew  Dixon 
^^llite  of  Syracuse,  Carleton  Sprague  of  Buffalo, 
and  Theodore  Roosevelt  of  New  York  City. 
I  think  that  twenty  years  have  justified  what  I 


'Vn  i/if  iJ^  er.My  J77J>.  UeaWryne  witkabcdy  of Jmerifon  fm^s  wit/funloa- 
liaimusiffs  scaled theTort  atmijnijj7tf  arui-lools  tTie fforriscn {(ocnai^frismurt. 

said  of  those  three  men.  .-Vnd  I  am  apt  to  re- 
member this  speech  of  mine  and  these  men  when 
I  read  in  a  New  York  or  Boston  newspaper  about 
hayseed  legislation,  with  the  implication  that 
nobody  knows  anything  unless  he  lives  in  the 
particular  to^\^l  in  which  the  newspaper  is  printed. 


NEW  YORK  325 

"WTien  you  go  by  canal  or  b}'  the  railwa}',  you 
have  a  chance  to  see  the  oldest  work  of  God 
which  }'ou  will  ever  see  on  this  planet,  which  I 
have  referred  to  alread}'  in  our  first  number. 
According  to  Agassiz  and  the  other  men  who 
know,  when  this  world  passed  into  the  Paleozoic 
out  of  the  Eozoic  condition  —  that  is,  when  it 
passed  from  the  dawii  of  life  to  the  antiquity  of 
life  —  certain  red-hot  rocks  showed  above  the 
water,  with  much  steam,  I  fancy,  and  much 
hissing.  They  were  the  range  of  ancient  rock 
which  divides  the  waters  of  the  St.  Lawrence 
from  the  waters  of  New  England  and  New  York. 
The  railway  as  it  runs  west  from  Schenectad}' 
takes  its  course  through  this  red  rock,  and 
Mr.  and  i\Irs.  Gentle  Reader  and  the  children 
saw  it  as  the  mules  travelled  along  on  the  path- 
way of  the  canal.  At  Little  Falls  the  boys 
nished  out  to  sell  them  diamonds.  These  are 
not  of  the  brand  of  Golconda  or  Johannesburg, 
but  they  are  cheaper,  and  the  children  were  well 
pleased  to  begin  their  mineralogical  cabinet  with 
them. 


326  TAKRY  AT   HOME   TliAVELS 

No !  I  will  not  pretend  to  tell  of  the  various 
adventures  of  those  happy  ten  days.  I  will  not 
tell  of  messengers  up  to  cheerful-looking  houses 
and  the  return  of  milk  and  cream  and  eggs  for 
the  support  of  man  and  woman.  Then  at  such 
places  as  Ilion  or  Utica  or  Rome  or  Rochester, 
there  would  be  a  walk  or  a  drive  through  the 
neighborhood,  with  every  adventure  ranging 
from  the  simplicity  of  a  canal  ride  up  to  the 
highest  civilization. 

With  the  nice  hearty  inmates  of  other  boats 
Reader  and  his  wife  and  the  children  made  cordial 
acquaintances,  some  of  which  will  ripen  into  the 
friendships  of  half  a  century.  For  you  must 
please  to  understand,  dear  reader,  that  the  sailor, 
whom  I  must  not  call  a  seaman,  who  commands 
a  vessel  of  three  or  four  hundred  tons  which 
makes  regular  passages  backward  and  forward 
from  New  York  to  Buffalo  and  perhaps  farther 
west,  lives  on  his  craft  with  his  family.  The 
boat  is  their  home.  Nahum  learns  from  his 
mother  there  that  b-a-t  spells  bat,  and  Tiyphena 
learns  there  how  to  broil  a  steak  and  how  to  bake 


NEW  YORK  327 

a  potato.  If  there  were  a  long  line  of  locks  to- 
gether, with  so  much  of  business  as  to  keep  the 
travellers  half  a  day,  our  cliildren  played  marbles 
with  other  bo^'s  of  the  fleet,  or  perhaps  the  girls 
from  the  rest  of  the  fleet  came  aboard  the  house- 
boat and  played  checkers  or  backgammon. 

Are  you,  alas !  as  fortunate  as  they  in  your 
vehicle?  I  am  afraid  you  are  riding  at  sixty 
miles  an  hour  as  you  turn  this  leaf  rather  impa- 
tiently. But  all  the  same  there  are  one  or  two 
points  which  you  should  notice.  Keep  on  the 
watch  after  you  pass  Schenectady  if  you  are  on 
the  northern  of  the  two  parallel  roads.  Even 
to  a  flying  traveller  those  black  and  red  rocks 
seem  more  hard  and  cruel  than  most  rocks  do, 
and  well  the}^  may. 

They  were  what  Charles  Sprague  saw,  — 

"  When  the  young  sun  revealed  the  glorious  scene 
Where  oceans  gather 
And  where  fields  grow  green." 

Certainly  I  do  not  know,  and  I  do  not  think 
that  anybody  else  knows,  how  long  it  was  after 
the  sudden  uprising  of  these  silent  rocks  before 


328      TAERY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

the  ice-waves  from  the  north,  bringing  down 
icy  floes  and  glaciers  even,  came  southward  in 
their  flow,  lodged  for  a  trifle  of  a  few  hundred 
thousand  centuries  (be  the  same  more  or  less) 
on  the  north  side  of  the  Laurentian  Range,  and 
then  surmounted  it  and  all  other  such  trifles,  and 
passed  southward  till  they  melted  away  before 
summer  suns.  You  and  I  need  not  bother 
ourselves  about  the  length  of  time.  What  men 
know  is  that  these  waters  which  filled  the  Lake 
Ontario  of  that  time,  the  ancestors  of  the  waves 
which  now  go  down  the  St.  Lawrence  so  peace- 
fully, were  barred  by  the  piles  of  icebergs  in 
their  way,  and  that  they  swept  across  to  find  the 
sea  by  way  of  the  Hudson  River.  Men  know 
their  track  by  the  boulders,  and  gravel-sheets, 
and  bits  of  sand  which  they  have  left  behind 
them. 

AMien  it  was  last  proposed  to  enlarge  the  great 
Erie  Canal,  there  were  people  who  thought  that 
this  old  tideway  of  the  very  dawn  of  things  might 
be  cleared  from  its  rubbish  and  made  to  do  our 
great  business  of  daily  bread.     If  you  want  to 


NEW   YORK 


329 


follow  out  this  little  bit  of  prehistoric  annals, 
cross  from  Utica  or  Syracuse  to  Lake  Ontario  and 
find  some  of  those  intelligent  gentlemen  there 
who  will  give  a  happy  month  to  you  to  show  the 
course  by  which  that  unnamed  river  found  its 
way  to  Manhattan  and  the  sea. 

Or,  if  you  have  not  the  month  to  give  to  this, 


go  down  the  bay  between  Staten  Island  and 
Long  Island  with  some  intelligent  pilot,  and  he 
will  tell  you  where  is  the  deep  gorge  which  those 
old  icebergs  chiselled  out  as  they  worked  their  way 
to  the  Atlantic. 

Do  not  pretend  to  make  your  first  or  your  fiftieth 
visit  to  Niagara  without  possessing  and  studying 
the  directions  to  travellers  prepared  in  1903  by 
the  Commission  for  the  Preservation  of  Niagara. 


330      TAREY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

In  this  very  interesting  report  you  will  learn  much 
that  the  average  sightseer  misses;  you  will  learn 
things  which  nobody  knew  thirty  years  ago. 
One  or  more  days  may  be  spent  to  great  advan- 
tage in  following  the  Niagara  by  trolley,  cross- 
ing it  at  its  mouth  at  Kingston,  and  returning 
on  the  other  side.  Stop  over  at  the  station, 
where  a  very  clever  fellow  (Yankee  clever)  will 
take  you  down  into  the  gorge  where  Tom  Moore 
thought  how  nice  it  would  be 

"  By  the  side  of  yon  sumach  whose  red  berry  dips 
In  the  foam  of  this  streamlet,  how  sweet  to  recline, 
And  to  know  that  1  sighed  upon  innocent  lips 

Which  had  never  been  sighed  on  by  any  but  mine." 

This  is  as  good  place  as  any  to  say  that  in  any 
collected  edition  of  Moore's  poems  the  Gentle 
Reader  will  find  a  curious  series  of ' '  Poems  Relat- 
ing to  America."  When  Moore  left  Bermuda, 
"on  account  of  a  disorder  in  the  chest,"  he  landed 
at  New  York,  and  by  what  he  called  the  ''Cohos" 
came  to  Niagara,  and  so  went  down  Lake  Ontario 
and  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Montreal,  and  Halifax, 
when  he  sailed  in  the  frigate  Boston  for  New  York. 


NEW  YORK  331 

The  poem  from  which  I  quoted  four  hnes  above 
is  a  veiy  curious  monument   of   the  America  of 


Fanny  Kemble. 


that  time.     I  suppose  the  Boston,  which  was  an 
Enghsh  frigate  and  not  an  American  frigate,  was 


332      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

the  same  Boston  which  the  poor  state  of  Massa- 
chusetts had  lost  to  the  Enghsh  in  the  Penobscot 
in  1778. 

It  is  quite  worth  while  for  any  one  who  has  a 
spark  of  historical  interest  to  take  with  him  on 
his  house-boat,  as  he  goes  from  Albany  to  Buffalo, 
the  journal  kept  by  the  girl  Fanny  Kemble,  as 
she  wTnt  to  the  "  Falls"  for  the  first  time.  The 
journal  ends  at  her  first  view  of  Niagara,  '^0 
God!    who  can  describe  that  sight!!!" 

There  the  reader  can  see  how  before  the  days 
of  sjmdicates  men  travelled  by  rail.  There  was 
a  superstition  first  that  you  had  to  have  an 
inclined  plane  by  which  to  ascend  to  a  town  or 
another  by  which  you  went  out  of  it,  as  you 
ascended  from  Albany  by  an  inclined  plane. 
There  was  another  superstition  that  when  you 
arrived  at  a  town  you  must  leave  the  train  and 
ride  across  in  a  different  carriage  (technically 
called  a  hack)  to  another  railroad.  Perhaps 
you  went  from  Albany  to  Schenectady  on  one, 
from  Schenectady  to  Utica  on  another,  from 
Utica  to  Syracuse  on  another,  from  Syracuse  to 


NEW   YORK  333 

Rochester  on  another,  and  from  Rochester  to 
Buffalo  on  another.  One  must  not  say  it  even 
in  a  whisper,  but  it  required  sjoidicates  to  unite 
these  four  or  five  roads  into  one. 

If  you  will  carefully  read  the  Commissioners' 
direction  for  visiting  Niagara,  you  will  learn 
about  the  discussions  which  have  gone  on  since 
Lyell's  time,  and  even  before,  as  to  the  place  of 
the  cataract  in  different  ages,  as  to  the  different 
courses  by  which  the  waters  from  the  upper 
lakes  pass  down  through  Ontario  to  the  sea.  It 
really  seems  probable  that  there  was  a  time  when 
the  northern  part  of  Lake  Huron  discharged  itself 
to  the  sea  by  a  much  shorter  channel. 

Ah  me !  I  have  only  brought  our  adventurous 
family  to  the  western  line  of  the  state,  and  all 
southern  New  York  is  as  yet  in  the  inkstand. 

The  Outlook  is  so  generous  that  it  permits  me 
to  give  my  little  boom  to  the  Erie  Canal,  which 
sometimes  seems  to  need  a  httle  cordial  friend- 
ship in  its  various  trials.  But  we  cannot  take 
the  happy  family  back  by  the  same  route,  for 


334      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

fear  that  they  should  be  frozen  up  on  the  long 
level  east  of  Rochester.  The  reader  may  take 
any  route  he  chooses.  There  is  the  Erie  Railway 
for  instance. 

Recollect,  in  general,  0  Gentle   Reader,  that 


Chautauqua  Lake  and  Point. 

New  York  is  the  Empire  State  because  it  holds 
this  central  place  between  the  oldest  mountains 
in  the  world  and  the  latest  Paris  fashions  as 
exhibited  in  New  York  stores.  \\Tien  you  are 
by  Chautauqua  Lake;  it  is  a  toss  of  a  sixpence 


NEW  YORK  335 

whether  your  cigar  end,  when  you  throw  it  into 
a  brook  as  you  drive,  shall  go  down  the  Mississippi 
and  enlarge  Florida,  or  shall  go  dowTi  the  St. 
Lawrence,  and  feed  the  dun  fish  of  your  next 
winter's  Sunday  morning  breakfast.  Let  me 
say  in  passing  that  if  you  have  not  spent  a  week 
at  the  annual  Chautauqua  you  do  not  know  your 
own  count  ly.  There  and  in  no  other  place  known 
to  me  do  you  meet  Baddeck  and  Newfoundland 
and  Florida  and  Tiajuana  at  the  same  table; 
and  there  you  are  of  one  heart  and  one  soul  with 
the  forty  thousand  people  who  will  drift  in  and 
out  there  —  people  all  of  them  who  believe  in 
God  and  in  their  country. 

Farther  east,  whether  you  are  on  foot,  as  I 
hope  you  are,  or  are  travelling  in  Mrs.  Diederich 
Stuyvesant's  automobile,  as  I  hope  you  are  not, 
you  will  be  tempted  by  each  of  the  Five  Finger 
Lakes,  as  the  geologists  call  them. 

Here  lived  in  happier  clays  the  ''Five  Nations," 
who  became  six  nations.  The  Senecas,  Onon- 
dagas,  Mohawks,  Cayugas,  and  Oneidas,  to  whom 
in  after  times  were  added  the  Tuscaroras.    Here 


336 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


Jemima  Wilkinson  settled  among  them,  and 
introduced  peaceful  arts.  Oh,  that  The  Outlook 
would  give  me  two  numbers  to  tell  who  Jemima, 
Wilkinson  was,  who  is  known  to  only  one  of  the 
three  million  readers  of  this  page. 

If  by  accident  any  one  wants  to  know  how  the 


Falls  of  Gexesep:  Eivku,  at  Rochester. 

Five  Nations  grew  up  to  be  one  of  the  gardens  of 
the  world,  let  him  read  the  new  life  of  Jan  Huide- 
koper.  He  will  see  here  how  a  young  Dutch- 
man, landing  when  he  was  twenty  years  old  with 
twenty  dollars  in  his  pocket,  lived  for  six  or  seven 
decades  and  died  in  his  own  palace  in  Crawford 


NEW    YORK  337 

County  in  Pennsylvania,  caring  in  the  meantime 
for  the  Holland  Purchase  and  for  other  like  regions. 
The  biography  of  one  man  serves  you  for  a  study 
of  the  history  of  a  nation. 

Rochester?  Pray  let  us  stay  in  Rochester 
for  a  day  or  two,  if  only  to  see  the  beauty  of  the 
fruit  in  August  or  September  or  October.  Do 
you  know  that  the  Rochester  Bank,  which  was 
the  Flour  Bank  when  Rochester  flour  was  the 
best  flour  in  the  world,  is  now  the  Flower  Bank, 
because  the  Rochester  nurseries  and  gardens 
challenge  the  comparison  of  the  world? 

Syracuse?  We  must  stop  over  here  if  it  were 
only  to  see  Mr.  Calthrop  and  to  go  out  to  the 
model  village  where  they  make  ready  for  market 
the  alkalies  which  are  far  older  than  our  Lauren- 
tian  hills. 

Utica?  We  shall  have  bad  luck  if  we  do  not 
strike  a  convention  there.  And  we  must  spend 
three  or  four  years  at  Ithaca  with  Mr.  White  and 
President  Schurman,  and  talk  Browning  with 
Professor  Corson.  We  used  to  say  of  Ithaca 
that  there  were  only  young  professors  there,  that 


338 


TAERY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


they  had  their  reputations  to   make   and  were 
making  them.     Now  that  they  have  made  them, 
it  is  worth  while  to  recollect  that  prophecy. 
Among  all  these  great  names,   which  appear 

in  every  newspaper,  I 
should  like  to  remind 
the  reader,  who  is  very 
gentle,  of  what  he 
never  heard  of,  and 
that  is  Schoharie  Cave. 
Back  from  the  Cats- 
kills,  back  from  Sche- 
nectady, back  from 
Sharon,  back  from 
everywhere.  It  is  one 
of  those  curious  lime- 
stone caves  in  which 
the  electric  light  now 
shows  such  wonders. 
And  without  going  to  the  Mammoth  Cave  you 
may  see  here  the  underground  wonders  of  the 
world. 

Sharon  and  Richfield  and  Saratoga  and  Ballston 


Jacob  Gould  Schurman. 
President  of  Cornell. 


NEW    YORK 


339 


and  forty  other  watering-places  all  offer  you  their 
temptations. 

The  people  of  New  York  City  themselves  do  not 
know  the  wonders  of  their  systems  of  parks. 
I  am  sure  I  did  not  know  them  till  a  traveller 


The  Mall,  Central  Park. 

from  London,  from  the  Park  Commission  there, 
told  me  how  much  time  it  had  taken  him  to 
examine  them,  and  gave  me  a  hint  of  how  much 
was  before  me  when  I  had  a  month  or  two  for 
the  examination. 


340      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

Fossils  ?  Yes,  fossils  if  you  want  them.  Lions  ? 
Yes,  lions  if  you  want  them.  Here  is  the  very 
lion  which  the  little  Carnegie  girl  saw  in  his  cage 
somewhere  on  the  Rhine  and  asked  her  father 
to  send  to  New  York.  A  great  English  botanist 
once  told  me  that  I  could  study  palm-trees  better 
in  the  great  palm  houses  at  Kew  than  if  I  were 
in  Java  or  Malacca.  I  am  quite  sure  that  I 
know  more  of  the  habits  of  the  hippopotamus 
from  my  observations  in  the  Central  Park  than 
do  all  my  bragging  travelled  friends  who  have 
been  up  the  Nile  and  down  half  a  dozen  times. 

The  Outlook  reader  will  be  on  the  outlook  as 
he  tarries  at  home  in  his  travels  for  something, 
be  the  same  more  or  less,  which  will  show  him 
how  man  is  to  be  lifted  to  the  higher  plane  and 
come  nearer  to  the  good  God.  He  will  do  well, 
then,  if  he  take  the  Outlook  office  as  a  central 
point,  and  if,  by  the  arts  of  a  genial  nature  and 
the  simple  life,  he  communicate  with  the  officers 
of  the  Associated  Charities  in  the  same  building, 
he  may  learn  from  them  more  and  more  of  the 
marvellous  charity  systems  of  the  city  and  state. 


Inauguration  of  Washington. 
341 


NEW    YORK  343 

Do  not  let  Argus-eyed  Press  deceive  you  here. 
Argus-eyed  Press  has  a  knack  of  seeing  the  worst 
and  making  the  most  of  it.  If  John  Flaherty 
knock  out  his  wife's  brains  with  a  flatiron,  John 
Flaherty  will  be  the  hero  of  the  next  nine  days. 
Meanwhile,  hour  by  hour  or  day  by  day,  week 
after  week,  assiduous,  tender.  Christian  charity 
is  working  its  way  up  hill  and  down  dale  in  the 
great  city  and  in  the  great  state.  At  the  office 
of  the  Associated  Charities  they  will  show  the 
Gentle  Reader  how  and  where  to  learn  what  he 
wants  to  know  of  the  care  which  men  and  women 
can  give  to  men  or  women  who  are  in  trouble. 

And  in  the  organization  of  public  education  by 
steady  steps,  still  advancing,  the  Empire  State 
of  New  York  has  learned  what  it  has  to  teach  to 
the  rest  of  the  civilized  states.  Here  at  my  side 
I  have  the  last  reports  of  the  University  of  the 
State  of  New  York  —  the  One  Hundred  and  Seven- 
teenth Annual  Report  and  the  One  Hundred 
and  Eighteenth  Annual  Report.  "\\^iat  is  called 
the  University  of  the  City  of  New  York  is  wholly 
different  from  that  of  the  University  of  the  State 


344 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


of  New  York.  In  the  year  1784  the  corporation 
of  the  Regents  of  the  University  of  the  State  of 
]^ew  York  was  formed  by  the  infant  legislature. 
It  is  now  a  state  department  and  at  the  same 
time  a  federation  of  more  than  nineteen  hundred 
institutions  of    "secondary"   and  higher   educa- 


CoNESTOGA  Wagon. 

tion.  Its  field  includes  high  schools,  union  free 
schools,  academies,  colleges,  universities,  profes- 
sional and  technical  schools,  and  also  the  work 
of  education  connected  with  the  libraries,  study 
clubs,  and  extension  courses. 

To  speak  of  one  detail  of  the  supervision  which 
this  Board  exercises  over  the  higher  studies,  or 


NEW  YOEK  345 

home  education  department,  the  library  depart- 
ment has  been  a  model  to  the  nation.  It  is 
difficult  to  make  people  understand  that  by  the 
lending  hbrary  S3^stem  of  the  state  of  New  York 
there  are  now  in  that*  state  five  hundred  and 
twenty-one  libraries,  with  two  million  three  hun- 
dred thousand  books,  circulating  annually  on  an 
average  four  hundred  issues  to  each  hundred 
families.  The  state  established  a  library  school 
which  has  attained  a  national  reputation.  The 
state  Librar}^  ranks  as  second  in  the  country  in 
its  equipment. 

And  so,  Gentle  Reader,  we  must  part.  We 
have  travelled  through  seven  states,  and  yet  we 
have  tarried  at  home.  I  did  not  know  you  by 
sight  when  we  began,  I  do  not  know  you  by  sight 
now.  But  then  we  were  strangers  to  each  other. 
Now  I  have  that  feeling  of  gratitude  to  you  which 
none  but  he  who  feels  it  knows  —  none  but  a 
writer.  He  is  used  to  readers  who  lay  his  valuable 
tractates  down,  to  be  read  on  the  next  Sunday, 
and  then  to  be  forgotten  with  the  dust  of  three 
days  upon  them.     You  have  not  treated  me  thus. 


346 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


If  you  did,  these  words  would  be  as  blank  paper 

to  you. 
Seven   states   we   have   gone    through.     They 

are  states  which    have  made  their  place  in  the 

civilization  of  the  world  and  need  not  be  afraid 

of  their  future. 
When  in  1750 
dear  Ezra 
Stiles,  who  was 
quite  compe- 
tent to  this 
duty,  a  p- 
proached  the 
history  of  one 
hundred  and 
thirty  years  of 
New  England, 
he  ventured  to 


■ 

W,(^  ^' 

^M 

H 

■jl^:. 

|fl 

^[^^^^1 

^H 

^Lv^H 

iif^^^^^^M 

Ezra  Stiles. 


prophesy.  He  had  found  out  how  often  the 
population  of  New  England  doubled;  he  sup- 
posed that  it  would  double  three  or  four  times  at 
the  same  rate  before  another  century  ended  in 
1850.     He  was  sure  that  the  religion  of  the  Con- 


NEW  YORK 


347 


gregational  churches  was  the  best  in  the  world. 
He  was  sure  that  the  stuff  of  which  Connecticut 
and  Massachusetts  were  made  was  the  best  in  the 
world,  and  he  calculated,  therefore,  that  in  1850 
six  or  seven  million  of  us  would  be  living  in  the 


Emigration  to  the  Western  Country. 


four  New  England  colonies  of  his  day,  —  wtU,  let 
us  own  it,  —  that  this  confederated  little  nation 
would  be  as  well  advanced  in  the  world  as  any 
of  the  old  Englands  or  Hollands  or  France  or 
Spain.  He  did  not  conceive  it  possible  that  any 
man  in  his  senses  would  ever  move  west  of  the 


348      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

Hudson  River  to  live.  Dear  Ezra  Stiles,  I  am 
afraid  that  he  never  pardoned  his  friend  Frank- 
lin for  establishing  himself  in  Philadelphia. 

It  has  not  turned  out  just  as  Ezra  Stiles  meant 
it  should,  but  when  I  go  to  Tiajuana,  and  when 
I  spend  a  Sunday  in  Vienna,  and  when  I  take 
my  coffee  in  the  arbor  in  the  Alhambra,  and  I 
run  against  a  compatriot  who  has  one  of  the  New 
England  names  or  those  of  their  New  York  cousins, 
I  am  apt  to  find  that  he  is  glad  to  tell  me  that  his 
forbears  eight  or  nine  generations  ago  came  over 
with  Brewster  or  Winthrop  or  Davenport  or  the 
Scotch-Irish  or  Knickerbocker  or  Stuyvesant. 
I  do  not  find  that  those  who  come  from  the  Empire 
State  are  ashamed  of  the  Empire  State,  and  I  do 
find  that  those  who  have  kinsmen  in  New  Eng- 
land are  glad  that  they  have  kinsmen  there. 

It  has  been  a  pleasure.  Gentle  Reader,  to  feel 
the  touch  of  your  hand  and  to  wonder  if  one  of 
your  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight  ancestors 
who  arrived  in  1630  were,  possibly,  one  of  mine. 


CHAPTER    IX 
WASHINGTON  THEN  AND   NOW 

Writing  in  the  city  of  Washington,  which  I 
first  visited  in  1844,  I  hke  to  give  some  memories 
of  that  city,  which  I  think  I  must  have  visited 
sixty-one  different  times  since,  before  1905. 

The  centennial  of  the  city  was  observed  with 
distinguished  ceremonies  by  Congress  in  the  year 
1900.  Mrs.  President  Adams's  first  drawing- 
room  was  New  Year's  Day,  1801.  In  a  few  words 
the  history  of  the  city's  l^irth  is  this :  By  an  act 
of  1790,  the  first  Congress  under  the  Constitution 
empowered  the  President  to  select  a  site  for  a 
'^federal  city"  on  the  Potomac  River.  The 
"vote"  was  a  very  narrow  one.  The  question  of 
the  site  of  the  city  had  been  the  fu'st  geographical 
question  which  divided  the  national  Congress. 
In  the  year  1861,  when  I  paid  one  of  my  last 
visits  to  Josiah  Quincy,  he  spoke  of  those  debates 

349 


350 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


and  of  the  end  of  them  by  a  vote  of  the  Senate 
with  the  utmost  bitterness.  I  had  asked  him, 
I  think,  when  the  North  and  South  first  measured 
swords.  When  he  rephed,  I  felt  that  he  had  a 
sort  of  contempt  for  my  ignorance.     He  said  it 

was  on  the  question 
whether  the  federal 
city  should  be  north 
or  south  of  Mason 
and  Dixon's  line  — 
that  is,  whether  it 
should  be  in  North- 
ern or  Southern  ter- 
ritory. The  balance 
between  the  twelvie 
states  was  so  even 
that  the  vote  for  a 
Southern  federal 
city  was  gained  only  by  the  secession  of  a  New 
Hampshire  Senator,  of  whom  Mr.  Quincy  spoke 
with  the  most  bitter  contempt,  as  if  his  vote  had 
been  treasonable.  But  the  vote  as  given  was 
given  to  the  bank  of  the   Potomac  River,  and 


President  Washington. 


LLLLLL.LL\L'' 

ALLU'^LLL"  ,,, 

U.l.U-Li.l.L.''     v- iLL 

ecu  (_  Vt-I.l.l_      \ t.  <l-C(^L-.t.^A    il—L. 

_  i_LUI_i  t-Ul-L.  ^.UL-.Vl.   "    ■         '■- 

l_U  4_L.U.t-UI_L''»  .LLaLUt    •  •"- 


.l_L>LI_LLl_l_ti'-iLl_Ll_LL   .It  H""UL.uLn...Lt- 


_      -UL'LULLL.L.ti'-iLL.H.LL 
"-'  rrLUl_M-H.I_l_L'  tt:t  Kttt -3- 

.L»:<^i-i_tt_Lui_i_i  L  Li_i.LLiA>  r 


LLLLLLLL^l-  CLLLtxLU^i  : 
ICkLLLLLLlALi.'-'-fcfc:'-';,''-^ 

f    \l_vi.l_l_l.l_l_     LLC,   LLfii.ol 
^    UUL-^t-LLL.     L1_U   LI-  ;£"'',, 

)^LLLii.LLULVt:Li:rLLdi 

,NLLLl:i-*t2i.LL.Ll.  ilL  LL, 

*      \l_L„'?<;  l-Vl_L.l_LL  «1.LL.LM    I 

,    l--:-Lll.L'i;i-I^L   i-LLL 

'      \_(,l.l_l.l_£r'^.l  tLL    1.        ,■. 

£UUUU1_L      «t,LLI    -t      . 

.L.L.L    ..M.LL.-;i 

.i_i-'i.L_oi-  r;^ 
<y^       Vi_Lt_UL. 

Xt'^*'^      ^— --IN. 


361 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND   NOW         353 

George  Washington  was   directed  to   select   the 
location. 

In  1864,  when  I  was  on  a  visit  to  General 
Benjamin  F.  Butler  at  Fort  Moni'oe,  he  called 
my  attention  to  the  rather  curious  fact  that  the 
site  which  "Washington  selected  was  the  place 
where  Daniel  Defoe  seventy-eight  yescrs  before 
had  put  his  hero  Colonel  Jack  when  he  came  to 
America  as  a  white  ''apprentice."  Colonel  Jack, 
as  this  reader  should  know,  was  an  English  boy 
who  had  been  kidnapped,  as  was  the  fashion  in 
the  time  of  Queen  Anne  and  George  the  First, 
and  so  sent  into  the  white  slavery  of  Virginia. 
The  history  of  Colonel  Jack  is  to  this  hour  the  best 
narrative  we  have  of  the  life  of  that  class  of  men, 
the  white  slaves  of  Virginia  at  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  and  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth. 
The  book  is  worth  reading  to-day  because  it  con- 
tains Defoe's  views  of  African  slavery,  and  what 
ought  to  happen  about  it.  And  it  is,  I  think, 
generally  forgotten  that  the  greatest  hero  of 
American  literature,  if  we  except  Uncle  Tom, 
is   that   man    described   by   Defoe    as    being    a 

2a 


354      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

Brazilian  slave-owner  who  was  engaged  in  the 
slave  trade  when  he  was  shipwrecked  on  an  island 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Orinoco.  This  slave-owner 
and  slaveholder  was  Robinson  Crusoe.  In  his 
memoirs,  which  have  been  more  widely  circu- 
lated than  any  book  that  was  ever  written  ex- 
cepting the  Bible,  there  is  never  one  expression 
of  regret  that  he  had  engaged  in  the  slave  trade, 
or  of  reproof  of  the  institution  of  slavery.  But 
in  Colonel  Jack,  Defoe  does  express  himself  as 
if  it  were  desirable  that  that  institution  should 
come  to  an  end. 

It  is  interesting  now  to  remember  that  a  niece 
of  his,  named  Elizabeth,  left  her  friends  in 
London  and  embarked  for  America.  She  was 
without  friends  and  bargained  with  the  captain 
of  the  ship  to  be  sold  on  her  arrival  to  reim- 
burse the  captain  for  her  passage.  Accordingly, 
that  year,  she  was  offered  for  sale  in  Philadelphia, 
and  Andrew  Job  of  Cecil  County  bought  her 
for  a  term  of  years  and  brought  her  to  his 
home.  Such  was  the  custom  of  that  time.  She 
not  infrequently  received  letters  from  her  uncle, 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND  NOW 


355 


Daniel  Defoe.  From  this  lady  came  the  distin- 
guished family  of  Trimble,  now  resident,.  I  think, 
in  Maryland. 

It  requires  a  little  vigor  of  the  imagination  to 
divine  precisely  the  place  of  Colonel  Jack's  home. 
But  he  says  him- 
self, ''It  was  our 
lot  to  be  carried 
up  a  small  river 
or  creek  which 
flows  into  the 
Potomac  River 
about  eight 
miles  from  the 
Great  River."  I 
think  that  Gen- 
eral      Butler 


Major  Andkkw  Ellicott. 


thought  that  it  said  about  eight  miles  from  the 
Great  Falls.  As  the  story  advances  Colonel  Jack 
was  carried  to  another  plantation  larger  than 
that  where  he  worked  before,  so  that  the  reader 
may  imagine  if  he  chooses,  that  he  lived  on  Capi- 
tol Hill.    Here   he  lived  between  five  and  six 


356      TAERY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

years.  He  then  was  established  on  three  hun- 
dred acres  of  land. 

Daniel  Defoe  had  a  son  who  emigrated  to 
North  Carolina,  and  I  am  told  that  descendants 
of  that  son  may  be  living  in  North  Carolina  now. 
But  the  North  Carolina  people  do  not  seem  to 
know  or  to  care.  Is  it  worth  while  to  say  in  pass- 
ing that  Oliver  Goldsmith's  trunk  of  clothes  and 
of  books  went  to  Wilmington  in  North  Carolina 
in  the  year  1722,  that  he  never  got  them  back 
again,  and  that  possibly  in  some  cellar  in  Wil- 
mington to-day  there  might  be  found  some  poems 
of  Goldsmith's  which  would  be  worthy  the  atten- 
tion of  Harpefs  or  the  Century  or  Mr.  McClure? 

To  return  to  the  city  of  Washington.  It  seems 
probable  that  George  Washington  selected  Capi- 
tol Hill  for  the  site  of  the  Capitol  of  the  new 
nation.  It  is  the  same  hill  on  which  three 
witches  are  represented  in  my  own  ballad  as 
kindling  the  flame  on  the  night  of  February  11 
(22),  1732.  But,  for  the  benefit  of  the  New 
York  Observer,  I  will  say  that  the  existence  of 
these  witches  is  mythical.    There  is  no  evidence 


WASHINGTON   THEN    AND  NOW 


357 


that  they  did  not  exist  excepting  in  poetry,  and 
there  is  no  evidence  that  they  did.  All  that  is 
necessary  to  say  is  that,  if  they  did,  they  were 
there  about  the  time  when  Colonel  Jack  was  on 


View  of  the  Potomac  and  the  Site  of  Washington  in  1800. 

the  same  ground,  and  that  they  are  persons  quite 
as  historical  as  he  is. 

The  congressional  battle  over  and  the  President 
having  selected  that  site,  Congress  passed  the 
necessary  acts  by  which  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia was  laid  out,  ten  miles  square,  to  be  the  home 
of  the  new  city.  When  people  growl  to-day,  as 
they  do  in  the  District  here,  that  they  are  not 


358     TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

allowed  to  govern  themselves  by  universal  suffrage, 
this  is  to  be  said,  ''Every  one  who  has  ever  come 
here  from  the  outside  has  come  on  that  under- 
standing." Thus,  the  Congress  of  1790  had 
its  eyes  open  and  created  a  federal  city  with 
reasons  which  they  thought  good.  The  Con- 
gress of  the  Confederation  had  once  and  again 
been  insulted  by  mobs  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia. 
Parliament  in  London  had  been  lately  insulted 
by  London  mobs.  In  France  the  Paris  mob  had 
again  and  again  shown  that  it  could  change  the 
map  of  Europe,  not  to  say  of  the  world. 

Whether  right  or  wrong,  the  National  Congress 
of  1790  meant  to  create  a  national  city  where  the 
officers  of  the  national  government  should  not 
be  exposed  to  the  insults  or  the  honors  of  a  great 
city  not  under  their  own  jurisdiction.  They  have 
certainly  had  their  reward.  Whatever  the  pub- 
lic opinion  of  the  city  of  Washington  is  (and  this 
would  be  very  hard  at  any  moment  to  tell),  the 
city  of  Washington  does  not  govern  the  United 
States  as  London  governs  England  or  as  Paris 
governs  France.    And  it  ought  to  be  remembered 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND   NOW         359 

that  it  was  established  specially  with  the  inten- 
tion that  it  should  not  have  any  such  political 
power.  People  who  are  interested  in  such  sub- 
jects would  do  well  to  observe  that  most  of  the 
American  states  have  followed  this  great  exam- 
ple.   That  is  to  say,  they  have  not  chosen  large 


View  of  Potomac  and  Washington  early  in  the  Last 
Century. 

cities  for  their  capitals,  but  have  intentionally 
placed  them  in  small  towns,  perhaps  in  villages, 
where  the  local  sentiment  should  be  most  incon- 
siderable. 

The  admirable  adaptation  of  the  spot  must 
have  presented  itself  to  George  Washington  as 
soon  as  the  plan  was  proposed.    The  very  name 


360     TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

of  Georgetown  for  the  city  already  standing  there 
seems  to  show  that  somebody  had  ah"eady  ob- 
served such  fitness  of  things  in  naming  this  town 
from  the  king.  I  think  that  no  other  spot  oc- 
curred to  him,  and  I  cannot  find  any  reference 
to  any  in  his  correspondence  or  diary. 

The  organic  act  of  July  16,  1790,  placed  the 
work  of  creation  of  the  city  solely  in  charge  of 
President  Washington,  and  it  would  seem  that 
till  his  death  he  never  lost  the  direction  of  the 
creation  of  the  city.  It  seems  certain  that  he 
directed  Major  L 'Enfant,  who  laid  it  out  on  sub- 
stantially such  a  plan  as  that  which  appears  on  the 
maps  of  to-day.  There  has  been,  and  probably  al- 
ways will  be,  much  discussion  as  to  their  real  origin. 
L' Enfant  was  a  young  subaltern  in  the  French 
army,  who  arrived  with  D'Estaing  in  1778.  He 
was  wounded  at  Savannah,  returned  to  France, 
and  was  engaged  in  the  city  of  New  York  in 
reconstructing  the  building  occupied  there  by 
the  first  Congress.  He  was  afterwards  in  Phila- 
delphia in  the  employ  of  Robert  Morris,  the 
financier.     Morris's  friends  asserted  that  to  L'En- 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND   NOW 


361 


fant's  waste  and  incompetence  Morris's  financial 
ruin  was  due. 

There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  Major 
L'Enfant  was  employed  by  George  Washington 
to  draw  the  original  plan  of  the  '' Federal  City." 
But  as  early  as 
January,  1791, 
Major  Andrew 
Ellicott,  who 
was  at  that  time 
an  officer  of  the 
government,  was 
instructed  by 
Washington  to 
"  go  down  to 
the  spot  staked 

out  on  the  paper  Charles  Bulfinch. 

design."  A  letter  from  Jefferson,  Secretary  of 
State,  dated  January  15,  1791,  says,  ''The  Presi- 
dent thinks  it  would  be  better  that  the  outline 
at  least  of  the  city,  and  perhaps  Georgetown, 
should  be  laid  down  in  a  plat  of  the  territory. 
I   have  only  now  to  send  it  and  to  desire  that 


362  TAERY   AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

Major  EUicott  may  do  it  as  soon  as  convenient, 
that  it  may  be  returned  in  time  to  be  laid 
before  the  Congress."  EUicott  was  at  this  time 
in  the  government  service,  and  the  instructions 
to  him,  dated  February  2,  go  into  great  detail. 
Money  is  furnished  to  EUicott  for  the  expedition, 
and  we  have  a  long  letter  from  him  of  February 
14,  announcing  the  completion  of  the  two  first 
lines,  with  a  letter  to  his  wife.  He  writes  again 
to  her  from  Georgetown  on  the  20th  of  March, 
sending  "sl  small  bundle  containing  a  pair  of 
black  silk  mitts  and  a  small  smelling  bottle 
which  I  hope  you  will  receive  as  a  small  testi- 
mony of  pure  affection  as  ever  had  place  in  the 
human  breast." 

Here  EUicott  worked  all  the  summer.  He  speaks 
of  L'Enfant  as  ''my  companion  Major  L'Enfant, 
who  is  pronounced  in  English  Lonfong.  He  is 
a  most  worthy  French  gentleman."  This  is 
interesting  because  before  November  of  that 
year  Jefferson,  who  was  Secretary  of  State,  wi  ote : 
''It  has  been  found  impracticable  to  employ 
Major  L'Enfant  in  the  degree  of  subordination 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND  NOW 


363 


which  was  lawful  and  proper.     So  that  L'Enfant 
had  been  notified  that  his  services  were  at  an  end." 

In  1802  a  com- 
mittee of  Congress 
''find  that  the  plan 
of  the  city  was  orig- 
inally designed  by 
Mr.  L'Enfant,  but 
that  it  was  in  many 
respects  rejected  by 
the  President  of  the 
United  States,  and 
a  plan  drawn  up  by 
Mr.  Ellicott  which 
recognized  the  al- 
terations made 
therein  was  en- 
graved and  published  by  the  order  of  General 
Washington  in  1792." 

On  the  authority  of  this  very  strong  statement 
in  ail'  official  report,  the  friends  of  Major  Ellicott 
have  felt  that  full  justice  was  not  done  to  him 
when  it  was  stated  that  the  city  as  it  now  exists 


Monument  ki;k(  tkk  i\  Imio.  av  the 
Navy  Yard,  Washington. 


364  TARRY  AT    HOME   TRAVELS 

was  the  creation  of  L'Enfant.  There  is  no  doubt 
whatever  that  the  city  as  it  now  exists  follows 
lines  of  the  surveys  made  when  the  region  was 
almost  a  wilderness  by  Ellicott,  and  it  seems  to 
me  equally  sure  that  Ellicott  was  following 
as  well  as  he  could  the  general  plan  of  L'Enfant, 
in  which,  however,  he  was  privileged  by  his  com- 
mission and  by  the  necessities  of  the  case  to  make 
frequent  changes  of  detail.  While,  therefore, 
it  is  strictly  true  that  the  present  city  follows  the 
lines  laid  down  in  the  engraved  plan  of  Andrew 
Ellicott,  it  is  equally  true  that  those  lines  were 
laid  down  in  the  wish  to  execute  the  general  plan 
as  it  had  been  approved  or  used  by  George  Wash- 
ington and  Major  L'Enfant.  Major  Ellicott  soon 
had  a  controversy  with  the  commissioners  as 
L'Enfant  had  done  already. 

In  an  interesting  biography,  published  since 
this  paper  was  originally  written,  Latrobe,  a 
young  Englishman,  whose  subsequent  achieve- 
ments like  those  of  the  rest  of  his  family  were 
those  of  Titans,  comes  in  for  a  share  of  the 
credit  in  the  original  surveys  of  the  city. 


WASHINGTON    THEN   AND   NOW 


4 
36o 


The  L'Enfant  plan  is  now  well  known  to  half 
the  people  of  America,  a  very  wise  modification 
of  what  people  call  the  ''gridiron"  plan,  which, 
as  I  suppose,  William  Penn  invented  when  he 
introduced  it  into  Pennsylvania.  By  that  plan 
one  body  of  parallel  streets  run  north  and  south, 


Back  View  of  the  Capitol,  Washington  (about  1810). 

one  body  run  east  and  west.  The  Philadelphia 
people  and  most  Western  people  like  this  plan, 
which  is  undoubtedly  convenient  for  strangers. 
Boston  people  and  people  trained  under  the  tra- 
ditions of  other  centuries  dislike  it.  The  disad- 
vantage is  that  you  have  little  or  no  power  of 


366      TAERY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

expressing  your  own  wish  when  you  go  from  one* 
place  to  another,  and  that  you  may  be  in  a  very 
bad  fix  if,  on  a  hot  day  in  August,  you  are  in 
Philadelphia  and  you  have  to  walk  two  miles  to 
the  northward  between  quarter  of  twelve  and 
quarter  past  twelve.  You  have  no  alternative: 
you  must  go  with  the  sun  shining  on  your  back, 
and  no  emperor,  pope,  king,  burgomaster,  mayor, 
or  chief  of  the  police  can  help  you.  If  you  die  of 
sunstroke  before  you  arrive,  your  body  will  be 
decently  carried  to  the  morgue.  But  they  cannot 
help  you,  they  cannot  prevent  the  sunstroke. 
Now,  in  a  city  laid  out  like  Boston,  where  the 
streets  follow  the  slopes  of  the  hill  or  the  curve 
of  the  shore,  an  intelligent  person  may  elect  by 
what  route  he  shall  go  from  one  point  to  another, 
and  how  he  may  exempt  himself  from  disagree- 
able contingencies,  perhaps  fatal  contingencies. 
L'Enfant  had  the  wit  to  adapt  his  city  to  both 
the  systems.  For  the  convenience  of  the  mathe- 
maticians he  laid  out  the  gridiron  city,  where 
A  B  C  D  E  F  G,  etc.,  represent  the  streets  which 
run  east  and  west ;  and  one,  two,  three,  four,  five, 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND  NOW 


367 


six,  seven,  eight,  etc.,  represent  the  streets  which 
run  north  and  south.  But  L'Enfant  was  a  man 
of  affairs  —  in  a  way  he  was  a  prophet  —  and  he 
said  to  himself,  ''For  what  is  this  city  built?" 
Answered  by  his 
good  angel,  "It 
is  built  to  provide 
for  the  adminis- 
tration of  a  great 
nation."  ''\Miat 
is  the  first  requi- 
sition?" Answer, 
''That  each  de- 
partment of  the 
administration 
may  communi- 
cate easily  with 
every  other." 

After  receiving 
these    inspira- 
tions, L'Enfant  located  on  good  places,  as  Nature 
had  designed  them,  the  points  w^here  the  Capitol 
should  be,  where  the  Navy- Yard  should  be,  where 


^]uL^T  \  hUNuv.    The  Tomb  of  Wash- 
ington. 


368 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


the  Court-House  should  be,  where  the  President's 
home  should  be,  and  where  the  Departments  of 
State,  of  War,  and  of  the  Treasury  should  be.  In 
those  days  the  Navy  Department  was  a  part  of 
the  War  Department.     Men  did  not  3'et  look  for- 


The  Capitol,  about  1830. 

ward  to  the  Peace  Department,  as  we  do  now,  nor 
had  the  Patent  Office  nor  the  Post  Office  nor  the 
Agricultural  Department  developed  themselves. 
But,  lest  they  should  develop  themselves,  L'Enfant 
reserved  squares  or  circles  for  them.  Then  on 
lus  plan  he  supposed  that  the  President  might 
wish  to  send  his  veto  or  his  approval  with  the 


WASHIXGTOX   THEN   AXD   NOW         369 

utmost  speed  to  the  Capitol,  and  so  he  drew  in 
Pennsylvania  Avenue  from  the  President's  house 
to  the  Capitol.  He  supposed  that  haste  might 
be  required  from  the  Capitol  to  the  Xavy-Yard, 
and  so  he  drew  in  an  avenue  there.  In  like  man- 
ner he  supposed  that  from  each  of  his  circles  and 
squares  to  another  people  might  wish  to  go  directly, 
and  he  cbew  in  avenues  in  other  places.  So  is  it 
that  you  have  a  double  plan  of  "avenues"  extend- 
ing northeast,  southeast,  northwest,  southwest, 
Uke  the  legs  of  a  tarantula  or  other  spider,  mak- 
ing one  plan ;  while  the  gridiron  sj^stem,  which  is 
a  system  of  so-called  streets,  makes  another.  This 
is  the  plan  of  to-day.  ^Mioever  writes  the  sequel 
to  this  paper  in  the  year  1951  can  explain  what 
now  exists  in  plaster  in  one  of  the  rooms  of  the 
Librar}'-  of  Congress,  the  additions  which  hope- 
ful people  expect  to  make  as  this  half-century 
goes  on. 

There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  Washington 
and  his  commissioners,  and  L 'Enfant  as  well, 
supposed  that  the  principal  residents  of  the  city, 
wdth  the  single  exception  of  the  President,  would 

2b 


370 


TAREY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


fix  their  homes  on  the  high  plateau  north  and  east 
of  the  Capitol,  It  is  exactly  suited  for  what 
the  modern  world  calls  the  ''residential"  quarter 
of  the  city.  Washington  himself  built  his  own 
house  near  the  Capitol,  just  to  the  north  of  it, 
on    this    plateau.     Pennsylvania    Avenue,    from 


The  President's  House,  1832. 

the  infant  Capitol  to  the  infant  White  House,  al- 
though running  through  what  was  very  nearly 
a  swamp,  furnished  cheaper  lots.  Naturally, 
as  most  business  was  done  at  the  Capitol  and  at 
the  White  House,  the  most  of  what  our  native 
language  calls  ''travel"  went  over  that  highway; 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND  NOW 


371 


and  tradition  says  that  this  is  the  reason  why  the 
city  extended  itself  in  that  direction  and  did  not 
take  possession  of  what  was  meant  to  be  the 
''residential"  region.  If  you  say  this  to  a  man 
from  the  Middle  states  or  the  West,  he  hardly 


Department  of  State.    Early  in  the  Last  Century. 

listens  to  you,  he  is  so  eager  to  say  to  you  that  all 
cities  always  grow  to  the  west  in  America.  This 
is  rather  a  curious  superstition  which  exists  in 
this  nation,  built  perhaps  upon  Berkeley's  famous 
hne,  ''Westward  the  star  of  empire  takes  its  way." 
These  things  are  what  Western  men  say  to  you, 
as  Herodotus  says. 


372 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


You  will  perhaps  let  me  say  in  passing  that  my 
first  acquaintance  with  that  unknown  land  east 
of  the  Capitol,  where  the  city  of  elegance  was  to 
have  been,  was  formed  when  I  was  taken  there 
in  October,  1844,  to  attend  the  funeral  of  Adam 


House  of  RErRESE>TATivE.s.  I8;il. 

Lindsey.  This  seemed  so  much  like  stepping  into 
one  of  Scott's  novels  to  bear  my  part  there  that 
I  cannot  help  telling  the  story.  In  the  days  of  the 
old  French  Revolution,  when  Robert  Burns 
mixed  himself  up  in  French  politics,  and  other 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND   NOW         373 

young  Scotchmen  with  him,  the  Tory  govern- 
ment of  England  pounced  upon  a  lot  of  those 
young  fellows  and  frightened  them  badly  —  I 
guess  with  reason.  Among  them  was  my  Adam 
Lindsey,  who  fled  to  America,  and  here  he  thought 
he  would  be  a  market  gardener  in  the  new  city, 
and  he  bought  his  land  in  those  ''residential" 
quarters.  He  was  some  four  generations  from 
the  Adam  Lindsey  who  befriended  Maiy  Queen 
of  Scots  at  Lochleven,  and,  so  to  speak,  I  shook 
hands  with  the  old  Adam  Lindsey  of  many  gen- 
erations before.  They  told  me,  and  believed,  that 
the  succession  had  been  for  all  these  generations 
in  the  same  name. 

In  the  last  twenty  years  there  has  been  no 
danger  in  sympathizing  with  Robert  Burns's 
revolutionary  views  and  hopes.  But  in  his  day 
Pitt's  government  was  very  severe  on  any  ex- 
pression of  such  opinions  as  his,  whether  in  Scot- 
land or  in  England.  They  followed  up  with  bitter 
animosity  Muir  who  had  made  a  reputation 
among  the  extreme  Radicals  of  England  and 
Scotland,  and  they  sent  him  to  their  new  colony 


374 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


of  Botany  Bay.  Another  martyi'  of  less  degree 
was  Fyshe  Palmer,  the  Unitarian  minister  of 
Dundee.  He  also  was  sent  to  Botany  Bay  for 
seven  years.  At  the  end  of  seven  years  he  was 
liberated,  but    before   he    returned   to    Scotland 


i^mm^h 


':.''  {^  i^'i  >"": 


View  of  Washington  from  the  Capitol,  1832. 

he  was  shipwrecked  on  what  is  now  our  island 
of  Guam,  and  there  he  died  and  was  buried.  But 
an  American  captain  named  Balch  who  was  well 
up  in  democracy  brought  his  body  back  to  Boston 
to  give  it  Christian  burial.  And  here  he  was 
buried  again  in  a  public  service  conducted  by 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND   NOW         375 

Biickininster.  And  if  any  antiquarian  can  tell 
me  where  his  grave  is,  I  will  tell  the  people  of 
Dundee  who  want  to  know,  —  not  that  they  want 
to  move  the  poor  bones  again,  but  by  some  proper 
tablet  they  would  hke  to  show  that  Fyshe 
Palmer's  martjTdom  is  not  wholly  forgotten. 

Robert  Burns  himself  vrrote  one  of  his  best  odes 
in  the  days  of  the  American  Revolution.  But 
at  that  time  nobody  dared  print  such  treason. 
So  it  was  only  in  1S72  that  it  was  printed  from 
the  original  manuscript.  I  have  never  seen  it  in 
any  American  Edition. 

Every  one  feels  the  difficulty  of  remembering 
the  mathematical  and  alphabetical  names  of 
streets.  In  1844  a  few  of  us  devised  a  system  of 
names  for  the  streets,  which  have  been  waiting  for 
sixty  years  for  confirmation  by  the  various  gov- 
ernments of  the  city.  A,  B,  C,  D  streets  were 
to  be  Adams  Street,  Benton  Street,  Calhoun 
Street,  Derne  Street,  and  so  we  went  on,  till,  at 
the  end  of  the  alphabet,  you  had  Zebulon  Street, 
in  honor  of  Zebulon  Montgomery.  First  Street, 
Second    Street,   Third   Street,    etc.,   were   to   be 


376 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


Wonder  Street,  Tudor  Street  (in  honor  of  the  Vir- 
gin Queen),  Trinity  Street  (for  Trinity  Church), 
Ivy  Street  (IV  Street),  Vermont  Street,  Virginia 
Street,  Pleiades  Street ;  Eighth  Street  was 
Atlantic  Street,  and  then  we  had  Muses  Street, 
Tennessee  Street,  and  so  on.     Poor  Mr.  McFar- 


The  Presidents  HorsK,  from  the  PoTuMAr,  LSi'J. 

land,  who,  with  his  commissioners,  rules  the  city 
so  magnificently,  will  have  to  consider  these 
names  after  sixty  years,  and,  as  he  is  apt  to  put 
things  through,  the  calendar  of  such  names  will 
be  well  adjusted. 

Washington  is  now  a  very  agreeajjle  cit}'.     It 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND  NOW         377 

is  a  very  beautiful  city.  People  who  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  government  of  the  nation  like 
to  come  here  to  live.  And  no  wonder.  But  for 
the  tens  and  twenties  and  thirties  of  the  last 
century,  it  is  spoken  of  with  great  disrespect  by 
the  people  who  had  to  live  there.  To  this  day, 
when  you  go  into  the  East  Room  at  the  White 
House  with  a  guide  who  remembers  the  traditions, 
he  tells  you  that  Mrs.  John  Adams  dried  her  clothes 
on  washing  day  in  the  East  Room.  And  the 
notices  by  travellers  and  the  scraps  which  have 
escaped  from  old  files  of  letters  speak  with  great 
contempt  of  the  infant  city.  The  phrase  ''mud- 
hole"  seems  to  have  stuck,  and  certainly  as  late 
as  the  Civil  War,  before  the  wonder-works  of 
''Boss"  Shepard,  it  deserved  that  name.  I  re- 
meni])er  seeing  an  artillery-wagon  stuck  in  the 
mud  in  front  of  the  Treasury  Building,  waiting 
for  a  relay  of  additional  horses  to  be  brought 
up  to  haul  it  out  of  its  dilemma.  A  lady  told 
me  the  other  day  that  as  a  little  gii'l  she  rode  to 
Lincoln's  second  inauguration.  The  carriage 
stuck  so  deep  in  the  mud  that  her  father  had  to 


378      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

leave  the  carriage  and  assist  in  disinterring  it. 

The  building  of  the  city  began  after  L' Enfant 's 
plans  and  the  work  of  the  first  generation  which 
followed.  As  I  am  in  the  line  of  parentheses,  I 
may  say  that  L'Enfant,  who  as  has  been  seen  seems 
to  have  been  a  rather  eccentric  person,  got  into 
stiff  quarrels  with  everybody  else  concerned,  and 
retired  to  a  plantation  in  the  neighborhood, 
where  his  grave  is  still  to  be  seen.  The  property 
was  subsequently  purchased  by  Mr.  Riggs.  Let  us 
hope  that  before  this  Congress  dissolves  a  proper 
memorial  may  be  erected  there  to  L'Enfant's 
memory.  As  for  monument,  he  has  a  right  to 
the  inscription,  ''If  you  want  a  monument,  look 
around." 

I  made  my  first  visit  to  Washington  sixty-one 
years  ago,  as  I  have  said.  I  spent  the  months 
of  October  and  November  there,  in  a  little  brick 
house  occupied  by  my  dear  friend  George  Jacob 
Abbot,  the  same  who  was  afterwards  Under- 
Secretary  of  State  and  United  States  Consul  at 
Sheffield.  George  kept  a  school  there,  and  he 
and  I  lived  there  together  for  two  months,  while 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND   NOW 


the  ladies  of  his  family  were  at  the  North.  In 
the  rear  of  the  house  there  was  a  little  stable,  and 
in  that  stable  we  kept  our  cow.  The  house 
stood  where  Mr.  Pollock  afterwards  built  a  palace 
which  is  there  to-day,  at  the  corner  of  I  and 


%^^i=a.A 


\Vashington  from  the  White  House,  aboCt  1840. 

Seventeenth  streets.  It  was  opposite  General 
Macomb's  house.  For  our  one  servant  we  had 
a  dear  old  saint  named  Josephine  Cupid,  whose 
color  may  be  guessed  at  from  her  name.  The  busi- 
ness of  the  housekeeping  began  when  Josephine 
milked  our  cow  in  the  morning,  and  then  opened 


380     TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

the  stable  door  and  drove  her  out  to  pasture. 
She  came  up  by  what  would  now  be  Connecticut 
Avenue  to  an  open  common,  ten  times  as  large 
as  Boston  Common  is  to-day,  and  there  the  cow 
spent  her  day  with  two  or  three  hundred  of  her 
race  and  sex,  eating  such  grass  and  drinking  such 
water  as  a  grateful  nation  and  a  good  God  pro- 
vided. I  doubt  if  the  quantity  of  the  food  weighed 
heavily  upon  her  stomach  or  her  conscience. 
At  all  events,  before  night  the  memories  of  the 
stable  came  back  to  her,  and  half  an  hour  before 
sunset  she  would  be  heard  at  the  door.  This 
means  that  in  1844  land  was  not  of  value  suffi- 
cient north  and  west  of  that  corner  to  be  inclosed. 
Who  owned  it  I  do  not  know.  Uncle  Sam  owned 
some  circles  and  squares  there.  But  the  anec- 
dote occurs  to  me  because  I  have  been  writing 
the  beginning  of  these  memories  in  a  closely 
built  part  of  the  town,  quite  in  the  heart  of  Jose- 
phine's cow's  rampaging  ground,  which  is  to 
say,  I  suppose,  about  a  mile  from  our  stable. 
The  city  has  grown,  in  those  sixty  years,  from  a 
mud-hole    which    had    thirty    thousand    people, 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND  NOW 


381 


perhaps,  within  its  borders,  to  a  city  of  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  inhabitants. 

The  only  part  of  this  common  which  was  fenced 
in  must  have  been  near  where  the  British  Embassy 
is  now.  We  called  it  the  gATnnasium,  I  think. 
That  was  the  high- 
sounding  name  for  a 
bowling-alley  which 
the  young  men  kept 
up.  I  remember  one 
afternoon  we  per- 
suaded Mrs.  Madison, 
who  was  still  alive,  to 
visit  us  there,  and 
with  great  effort  she 
got   a   ball   down  the  ^^s.  jiadison. 

middle  of  the  alley  and  was  complimented  on  her 
knocking  down  the  king.  President  Tyler  came 
over  and  played  with  the  young  gentlemen  some- 
times. Everything  had  the  simplicity  and  ease, 
if  you  please,  of  a  small  Virginia  to^^Tl.  ^Mien- 
ever  the  weather  would  serve,  a  great  many  of 
the  Southern  members  of  the  House  or  the  Senate 


382      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

rode  to  the  Capitol  on  their  saddle-horses.  There 
were  thirty  or  forty  posts  in  front  of  the  Capitol 
near  where  the  statue  of  Washington  now  stands. 
You  rode  up  to  one  of  those  posts  and  hitched 
your  horse.  You  left  him  while  you  went  in  and 
attended  the  meeting  of  the  House;   you  came 


The  Smithsonian  Institute. 
From  an  old  engraving. 

out  and  unhitched  him  and   rode  him  to   your 
two  o'clock  dinner. 

I  do  not  think  that  in  the  somewhat  mechanical 
etiquette  of  Washington  to-day  we  have  improved 
on  the  familiar  ease  of  social  life  in  those  days. 
If  you  were  a  youngster  of  five-and-twenty  or 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND  NOW  383 

thereabouts,  you  took  your  constitutional  in  an 
afternoon  on  foot  or  on  horseback.  Where  shall 
we  take  tea?  Let's  go  to  Mrs.  Seaton's;  it's 
always  pleasant  there.  So  you  rang  the  bell, 
which  was  immediately  answered  by  a  well- 
pleased  negro;  and  you  went  into  that  large, 
cheery  drawing-room  to  find  perhaps  five  and 
twenty  other  gentlemen  who  had  looked  in  at  the 
same  time.  Somebody  brought  you  a  cup  of  tea, 
somebody  brought  you  a  biscuit.  You  stayed 
five  minutes  or  an  hour  and  a  half,  as  you  liked, 
and  within  ten  days  you  looked  in  on  Mrs.  Seaton 
again. 

I  asked  a  friend  in  New  England  once  what 
parallel  we  had  to  this  in  our  New  England  cities, 
and  he  cried  out,  raising  both  hands,  "Oh,  if  that 
happened  once,  your  Mrs.  Seaton  would  move  out 
of  town  next  day."  Nor  do  I  find  anything  quite 
like  this  in  Washington  in  the  arrangements  of 
to-day,  with  Monday  for  Judges,  Tuesday  for 
the  House,  Wednesday  for  the  Cabinet,  Thursday 
for  the  Senate,  and  so  on.  One  is  a  little  apt  to 
send  his  double  to  leave  the  cards  in  such  a  system. 


384      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

For  all  that,  one  of  the  men  most  competent 
to  speak  in  this  world  tells  me  that  in  no  capital 
city  of  the  world  is  '^ society  so  well  organized" 
as  it  is  here.  Certainly  I  know  no  city  where  you 
can  see  so  many  agreeable  people  if  you  want  to 
and  if  you  have  the  time  to  do  it.  Washington 
people  themselves  say  and  think  that  in  a  year's 
time  everybody  in  the  world  who  is  worth  seeing 


w 

The  Capitol,  about  1850. 

looks  in  here.  It  is  probable  that  this  is  a  little 
as  Abraham  Lincoln  said  of  a  book,  that  people 
will  read  such  and  such  a  book  who  like  to  read 
that  sort  of  book.  The  Washington  people  rate 
the  social  order  of  the  world  by  considering  first 
those  people  who  have  liked  to  come  to  Washing- 
ton in  th{^  })revi()us  twelve  months.  Prince  Henry, 
for  instance,  takes  a  higher  grade  in  their  book 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND  NOW         385 

of  notables  than  Prince  Alfonso  or  Prince  Karl. 
And  it  is  true  that  agreeable  travellers  like  to  come 
here.  It  is  true  that  the  Ethnological  Bureau  has 
in  its  employ  nine  hundred  accomplished  men  of 
science  who  have  to  be  here  once  a  year.  It  is 
true  that  the  National  Academy  and  the  Colonial 
Dames  and  the  King's  Daughters  and  every  other 
grand  order  in  the  country  is  apt  to  meet  here, 
so  that,  whatever  else  you  lack,  you  will  not  lack 
the  society  of  agreeable  people.  About  forty 
thousand  New  Englanders,  as  I  count  it,  pass 
through  Washington  every  winter  southward 
because  it  is  too  cold  in  New  England;  while 
about  twenty  thousand  other  people  of  the  same 
blood  and  lineage  are  going  northward  because  it 
is  too  hot  in  Florida  and  Georgia.  These  people 
meet  each  other  at  Washington.  The  result  is 
a  little  like  that  of  putting  cold  water  over  an 
alcohol  lamp  when  you  want  to  make  coffee. 
This  winter  has  been  especially  cold  here  (the 
winter  of  1905).  They  never  had  to  shovel  their 
sidewalks,  I  think.  They  certainly  do  not  know 
how  to  do  it,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  winter  the 

2c 


386 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


commissioner  bade  them  put  sawdust  and  ashes 
on  the  ice  of  their  sidewalks,  to  the  great  surprise 
of  a  considerable  part  of  the  population. 

To  continue  for  a  moment  the  comparison  of 
the  Washington  of  1844  and  that  of  1904,  I  may 


House  of  Representatives,  about  1850. 

say  this,  that  in  square  miles  or  square  inches 
the  nation  of  that  day  was  not  half  as  large  as  is 
the  nation  of  to-day,  and  I  may  say  that  half  the 
nation  then  was  pretending  and  trying  to  feel 
a  certain  indifference  toward  national  legislation, 
and  I  may  say  that  everything  then  depended 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND   NOW         387 

upon  mails  and  nothing  on  the  telegraph;  and 
that  the  mail  of  that  day  took,  on  an  average,  five 
times  as  much  time  for  its  service  as  the  mail  does 
now.  I  remember  seeing  a  man  who  had  been 
riding  day  and  night  from  New  Orleans  —  "looked 
as  if  he  had  just  come  out  of  a  state's  prison," 
as  somebody  said.  It  was  in  Philadelphia,  and 
he  had  been  eight  days  and  eight  nights  doing  it. 
So  it  happened  that  whoever  came  to  Washing- 
ton then  felt  in  fact  somewhat  as  a  man  feels  who 
now  happens  in  at  Quebec  or  at  Glasgow.  He 
came  out  of  America  into  Washington.  Just 
now  the  truth  is  exactly  the  other  way :  you  come 
into  America  when  you  come  into  Washington. 
Take  my  own  dear  townsmen.  To  this  hour 
the  very  best  of  them  doubt  the  real  existence  of 
any  important  communities  in  the  world  farther 
off  than  Springfield  on  the  west,  or  Portland  on 
the  north,  or  Newport  on  the  south.  And  those 
very  people  come  here  by  stress  of  weather  — 
a  Raymond  excursion  party,  for  instance  — 
somewhat  as  if  they  were  going  to  the  City  of 
Mexico.    They  find  here  better  houses  than  they 


388 


TAKRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


left  at  home ;  they  find  the  Congressional  Library, 
they  find  people  who  have  just  happened  over 
from  Seattle  or  Santa  Barbara ;  so  really,  for  the 
first  time,  they  get  some  idea  of  what  their  coun- 
try is. 

Indeed,  one  could  not  contrive  a  better  httle 


Navy  Yard,  Washington. 

pattern  of  America  than  he  gets  when  he  goes 
through  the  street  in  which  he  passes  a  palace  such 
as  has  no  superior  in  the  world  and  comes  next 
to  the  clay  bank  left  by  ''Boss"  Shepard,  next 
to  which  there  is  a  slab  shanty  perched  up  on  the 
top  of  a  bank  waiting  for  some  Western  Senator 


389 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND   NOW         391 

to  wish  to  build  a  palace  there.  I  mean  that  the 
city  is  finished  to  the  highest  point  of  modern 
civilization  in  one  place,  and  that  it  is  left  where 
L'Enfant  and  Washington  left  it  in  another. 
That  makes  an  admirable  type  of  the  United 
States  of  to-day. 

The  winter  of  1844-45  was  the  winter  in  which 
Texas  was  annexed  to  the  United  States.  Amer- 
ica cares  nothing  for  history,  and  the  generation 
of  to-day  does  not  even  know  by  what  ingenuity 
that  annexation  was  effected.  The  Southern 
oligarchy  of  that  time  meant  to  have  Texas  as 
a  part  of  the  United  States,  let  it  cost  what  it 
might.  Here  was  this  fine  region,  as  large  as 
France,  which  had  declared  independence,  and 
the  Southern  people  wanted  it  because  its  position 
would  turn  the  balance  of  slavery  or  freedom 
in  the  United  States.  For  the  same  reason,  the 
Northern  people  did  not  want  it.  It  was  then  and 
there,  for  instance,  that  the  state  of  New  Hamp- 
shire, now  one  of  the  most  strenuous  of  Repub- 
lican states,  turned  right  over  from  being  the 
most    strenuous    of    Democratic    states.     Under 


392      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

the  leadership  of  such  men  as  John  Parker  Hale, 
they  refused  to  play  the  Southern  game  any 
longer. 

A  treaty  had  been  arranged  between  the  re- 
pubhc  of  Texas  and  the  United  States  by  which 
Texas  should  be  admitted  into  our  nation.  As 
late  as  April,  1844,  the  Senate  rejected  this  treaty 
by  the  vote  of  35  to  16,  while  the  treaty  required 
two-thirds  of  the  vote  in  its  favor.  So  the  magic 
of  the  ''Joint  Resolution"  was  tried.  When  you 
cannot  do  a  thing  by  statute  or  treaty,  you  do  it 
by  a  ''Joint  Resolution";  and  the  short  session 
of  1844-45  was  spent  in  driving  through  the  two 
houses  a  "Joint  Resolution"  providing  for  the 
annexation  of  Texas. 

This  gave  magnificent  speaking  in  both  houses. 
It  witnessed  the  bolting  of  those  Northern  Demo- 
crats who  then  and  there  left  the  Southern  alli- 
ance forever.  And  whoever  lived  in  Washington 
thought  it  was  the  most  important  year  in  history. 

I  find  a  certain  interest,  therefore,  in  seeing  that 
it  now  occupies  fourteen  lines  in  Bryant  and  Gay's 
History  of  five   volumes.     We  Northern  people 


393 


WASHINGTON   THEN   AND  NOW         395 

had  supposed  that  the  Senate  could  be  relied 
upon  to  defeat  the  Joint  Resolution,  though  we 
knew  the  vote  would  be  very  narrow.  But  Presi- 
dent Tyler  was  doing  his  best,  and  Mr.  Polk's 
followers  were  doing  their  best  to  whip  in  recu- 
sants. 

I  left  Washington,  I  believe,  on  the  3d  of 
March,  1845.  I  know  I  was  so  angry  at  Polk's 
election  that  I  would  not  stay  to  his  inauguration. 
This  was  foolish  in  me.  I  called  Mr.  Rufus 
Choate,  who  was  one  of  our  Massachusetts  Sena- 
tors, out  from  the  Senate  Chamber  and  said  to 
him,  ''I  am  going  to  Boston,  Mr.  Choate;  what 
shall  I  tell  my  father  ? "  ''Tell  him  we  are  beaten, 
Mr.  Hale.  Magno  prcelio  victi  sumus.^'  They 
had  heard  that  morning  that  a  certain  Maryland 
Senator,  about  whose  decision  no  one  had  known 
till  then,  was  going  to  vote  for  annexation.  When 
it  proved  a  few  days  after  that  his  son  was 
appointed  judge  by  President  Tyler,  people 
supposed  they  knew  why  that  vote  was  given. 

The  constant  pressure,  one  may  say,  of  those 
great  debates  in  the  House  and  in  the  Senate 


396 


TARKY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


interested  the  little  city  of  thirty  thousand  people 
almost  to  a  man  or  a  woman  in  the  proceedings  at 
the  Capitol.  But  as  one  sees  Washington  to-day, 
Washington  cares  very  little  what  is  going  on  at 
the   Capitol.      People   are  quite   too   dependent 


^^ll^^^         — 

Hi 

m 

» „   - 

JJlL^tlft  :ijyjj^^g 

Mi^jii.      ^^-'. 

Pr"*  y^-,. 

^^  ■;...—■"' 

•■<- 

:'''4 

Washington  from  Arlington  Heights,  1872. 

on  their  newspapers  to  distress  themselves. 
Exactly  as  there  are  many  people  in  Albany 
this  winter  who  have  not  been  to  the  state  Capi- 
tol of  New  York,  as  there  have  been  as  many 
people  in  Boston,  Hartford,  and  Providence  who 
have  not  been  to  the  State  Houses  of  Massachu- 
setts, Connecticut,  or  Rhode  Island,  so  you  would 


WASHINGTON   THEN  AND  NOW         397 

find  that  in  the  city  of  Washington  in  the  last 
winter  two-thirds  of  the  men  and  women  had  not 
been  into  the  Senate  Chamber  of  the  nation  or 
into  the  House  of  Representatives.  But  that 
was  not  so  when  the  question  in  the  Capitol  was 
supposed  to  be  the  question  whether  the  United 
States  is  a  nation  or  the  United  States  are  a 
confederacy. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   NEW   WASHINGTON 

Yes,  I  suppose  in  a  fashion  all  capitals  are 
alike.  But  the  people  in  Washington  are  a  little 
apt  to  suppose  that  their  capital  is  more  like 
London  or  Berlin  or  Paris  than  it  is.  Napoleon 
used  to  say  that  there  were  men  in  cellars  in 
Paris  who  had  never  heard  of  his  name,  who  had 
never  heard  of  Louis  XVPs  name,  and  who 
knew  practically  almost  nothing  of  the  years 
between  Louis  XVI  and  what  Carlyle  called  the 
''whiff  of  grape-shot."  I  suppose  something 
like  this  is  true  now.  This  could  not  be  true 
in  Washington.  Yet  in  Washington  there  are 
thousands  of  people  who  are  hard  at  work  and 
do  the  Lord's  business  who  are  very  indifferent 
to  the  names  of  the  figureheads  or  the  steersmen 
of  the  day.  I  have  asked  Cambridge  undergradu- 
ates to  tell  me  with  whom  they  were  reading  their 

398 


THE  NEW   WASHINGTON 


399 


Latin  or  their  political  history,  and  they  have 
not  known  the  name  of  their  teacher.  I  do  not 
think  I  could  ask  any  official  of  the  twenty-five 
thousand  in  Washington  who  was  the  President 
of  the  United  States  and  find  him  ignorant.  But 
I  do  think  there 
is  many  an  official 
in  Washington 
whom  I  might 
ask  to-day  who 
would  be  Mr. 
Fairbanks's  suc- 
cessor if  the 
President  and 
Vice-President 
died,  and  the 
man  would  not 
be  able  to  tell  me. 


Joseph  G.  Cannox. 


In  every  department,  and  this  is  fortunate  for 
the  country,  there  are  some  men  quite  too  useful 
to  be  turned  out  on  a  change  of  administration. 
Whoever  else  goes,  Mr.  A.  B.  must  remain,  or 
Mr.  X.  Y.,  to  keep  the  machine  running.     They 


400      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

told  me  in  Paris  when  I  was  first  there  that  when 
Louis  Phihppe  became  king,  in  1830;  there  were 
clerks  in  the  public  offices  who  had  served  there 
since  Louis  XVI  was  on  the  throne.  That  was 
more  than  forty  years.  Directoire,  First  Consul- 
ate, Empire,  Bourbon,  it  was  all  one  to  them; 
the  king's  work  or  the  republic's  work  went  on 
with  even  step,  cequo  pede. 

Any  change  in  such  order,  as  you  can  see,  is 
bad.  I  remember  I  once  had  a  letter  from  Wash- 
ington to  ask  me  if  I  could  tell  them  where  Kohl's 
maps  were  —  a  collection  of  considerable  value 
which  Mr.  J.  G.  Kohl  had  made  for  them.  I  said 
I  would  show  them  the  first  time  I  was  in  Wash- 
ington, and  then  I  took  one  of  the  gentlemen 
of  the  Department  which  wanted  to  know  — 
took  him  in  a  cab  to  a  house  which  the  Depart- 
ment had  occupied  in  the  war,  and  went  up  into 
a  particular  hallway  where  was  the  original 
chest  in  which  Kohl's  maps  were  to  be  found. 
There  have  to  be  certain  permanent  people  who 
remember  such  traditions  of  the  Department. 

Sometimes  such  people  drop  into  the  habits 


THE   NEW  WASHINGTON 


401 


of  all  chancelleries  and  adopt  that  infamous  rule 
of  feudal  governments  that  it  is  better  not  to  do 
a  thing  than  to  do  it. 

I  love  to  tell  the  stories  on  the  other  side  which 
show  that  with  us  the  Sovereign  is  the  People, 
that  the  Sovereign  is  in  the  saddle,  and  that  the 
Sovereign  pokes  about  in  Washington  as  Haroun- 


CoxNECTicuT  Avenue,  \Vashi.v<;tiix. 

al-Rashid  did  in  Bagdad.  The  late  Commodore 
Green  told  me  that,  coming  home  from  the  West 
Indies  when  he  was  a  youngster,  he  said  in  the 
office  of  the  chief  of  his  bureau  that  he  thought 

2d 


402     TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

it  was  time  that  the  longitudes  should  be  read- 
justed by  electric  telegraph.  If  you  will  think 
of  it,  this  gives  you  absolute  precision,  far  greater 
than  stellar  observations  can  give.  The  chief 
of  the  bureau  spoke  of  this  to  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy.  The  Secretary  of  the  Navy  sent  the 
next  morning  for  the  young  lieutenant,  and  at 
once  asked  him  how  he  would  take  the  longitudes, 
and,  seeing  that  he  had  a  head  on  his  shoulders, 
gave  him  a  small  vessel  for  voyages  in  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico  and  all  the  men  he  wanted. 

From  this  beginning  began  the  system  of  tele- 
graphic longitudes  which  has  gone  so  far  that 
now  every  hydrographic  bureau  in  the  world  uses 
the  longitudes  which  Uncle  Sam  has  calculated 
from  our  own  observations  in  every  ocean.  Green 
was  at  work  in  his  little  tent  on  an  island  far  away, 
where  they  had  a  wire  to  London,  when  some 
English  officers  came  in,  introduced  themselves, 
and  were  interested  in  seeing  the  processes. 
Green  said:  "Why  don't  you  get  some  of  this  to 
do?  The  whole  world  is  to  be  done,  and  you 
would  like  the  work."    To  which  one  of  them 


THE  NEW   WASHINGTON 


403 


replied:  ''Get  some  of  it  to  do  !  How  should  we 
get  it?"  ''Why/'  said  Green,  "you  would  go  to 
the  Admiralty,  tell  them  about  it,  and  ask  them 
to  commission  you."  At  which  the  Englishman 
replied,   "Dear  Mr.   Green,   if  we  spent  half  as 


Upper  Connecticut  Avenue,  and  Corner  of  "Oak  Lawn." 

much  time  in  the  Admiralty  as  you  have  spent  in 
talking  to  us,  we  should  be  kicked  downstairs." 
There  is  the  difference  between  working  in  a 
country  where  the  People  is  the  fountain  of  honor 
and  the  Sovereign  of   the   nation   and  another 


404      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

country  where  you  have  got  to  tell  Quogga  to 
tell  Mingo  to  ask  Sambo  to  ask  Caesar  to  send  up 
your  card  to  Mr.  Smith  to  ask  him  to  consult 
Mr.  Jones  as  to  whether  Sir  Stopford  Buffles  will 
appoint  a  day  when  he  can  receive  you. 

Two  friends  of  mine,  botanists,  were  coming 
up  a  few  months  ago  from  a  botanical  expedition 
in  the  South.  They  missed  their  connection  in 
Washington,  so  that  they  had  five  or  six  hours  to 
stay  there.  Without  any  introduction,  they  went 
at  once  to  the  Agricultural  Department.  There 
they  were  cordially  welcomed  by  people  who  did 
not  know  their  names,  I  suppose.  They  told  of 
their  interest  in  forests,  they  told  just  what  they 
wanted  to  see  and  to  know,  and  before  they  were 
five  minutes  older  one  of  them  was  sitting  by  one 
cabinet  in  one  room  and  another  by  the  right 
cabinet  in  another  I'oom;  and  they  had  every 
facility  for  studying  in  the  best  collections  of 
the  world  precisely  the  things  which  interested 
them  and  which  they  wanted  to  know. 

Compare  this  with  an  experience  of  mine  in 
London  in  1859. 


THE  NEW   WASHINGTON  405 

I  arrived  in  London  early  in  October.  Mr. 
Bancroft,  the  historian,  had  asked  me  to  make 
some  copies  for  him  in  the  State  Paper  Office. 
I  wanted  to  do  the  right  thing,  so  I  called  at 
once  on  the  American  minister,  Mr.  Dallas.  Mr. 
Dallas  will  not  mind  it  now  if  I  say  that  he  thought 
of  himself  quite  as  highly  as  he  ought  to  think. 
He  had  a  great  respect  for  the  letters  of  intro- 
duction which  I  brought  him,  and  the  whole 
interview  was  a  fine  illustration  of  etiquette,  diplo- 
macy, and  red  tape  in  which,  dear  reader,  I  assure 
you  I  could  and  can  do  as  well  as  another  if  there 
is  occasion.  So  I  told  him  what  Mr.  Bancroft 
wanted  and  I.  He  said  that  if  I  would  write 
him  a  note  which  he  could  send  to  the  Foreign 
Secretary,  the  Foreign  Secretary  would  send  that 
note  to  the  Home  Secretary,  and  the  Home  Sec- 
retary would  confer  with  the  Keeper  of  the  Records, 
and  that  he,  Mr.  Dallas,  had  no  doubt  that  the 
Keeper  of  the  Records  would  give  me  the  per- 
mission I  wanted.  Here  I,  barbarian  that  I  was, 
thanked  him,  but  said  if  I  might  sit  a  moment  at 
his  desk  I  would  write  the  memorandum;   that 


406 


TAKRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


I  wanted  to  see  the  portfcjlio  of  American  papers, 
very  limited,  as  I  need  not  say,  of  1584.  Mr. 
Dallas's  hair  turned  gray  as  I  spoke  of  sitting 
at  his  desk.  He  said  he  thought  I  had  better 
give  more  thought  to  the  letter  and  had  better 


DkPAKTMENT    of    AGRirULTIKK 


go  to  my  lodgings  and  write  him  a  note  which,  as 
before,  he  could  send  to,  etc.,  etc.,  etc.  I  accepted 
the  snub,  went  to  my  ''lodgings,"  wrote  the  note, 
and  have  never  seen  Mr.  Dallas  from  that  day  to 
this.    WTiat  happened  was  this  —  that  that  even- 


THE  NEW  WASHINGTON  407 

ing  I  met  at  a  little  party  Mr.  Gardiner,  the  diligent 
and  celebrated  historian  of  that  time,  that  the 
next  morning  he  introduced  me  to  Sir  Francis 
Palgrave,  the  Keeper  of  the  Records,  that  he  gave 
me  a  line  which  opened  the  whole  history  of 
England  for  a  thousand  years  to  me.  I  made  my 
copies  and  sent  them  to  Mr.  Bancroft,  I  suppose 
the  next  day,  and  then  went  off  for  ninety  days 
on  the  Continent  and  elsewhere.  On  my  return 
home  in  the  first  week  of  the  next  January,  as  I 
shook  hands  with  the  captain  of  the  Europa  in 
Queenstown  Harbor,  he  said  to  me  that  I  should 
find  a  note  from  the  Foreign  Office  in  my  state- 
room. I  wondered  what  the  Foreign  Office  had 
to  do  with  me,  and  I  ran  downstairs  to  find  a  per- 
mit from  the  Record  Office,  countersigned  by  the 
Home  Office,  countersigned  again  by  the  Foreign 
Office,  permitting  me  to  examme  the  letters  of 
the  year  1584. 

Now  I  do  not  say  but  there  is  more  or  less  of 
this  fuss  and  feathers  in  Washington,  but  I  do 
say  that  when  the  People  is  Sovereign  and  the 
Sovereign  is  in  the  saddle,  there  is  much  less  of 


408      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

it  than  there  is  where  they  are  trying  to  maintain 
the  forms  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  to  use  the 
machinery  of  Egbert  or  Alfred  or  William  the 
Conqueror.  This  sometimes  ends  in  putting 
Wamba  the  son  of  Witless,  son  of  an  alderman 
the  son  of  a  fool,  into  the  cab  of  a  modern  loco- 
motive to  take  an  express  train  across  the  country. 

There  is  an  old  saw,  concocted  a  generation  ago, 
which  said  that  when  a  Boston  man  is  introduced 
to  a  newcomer  he  asks,  ''What  does  he  know?" 
That  in  New  York  the  Knickerbocker  asks, 
''How  much  is  he  worth?"  In  Philadelphia  the 
people  ask,  "Who  was  his  grandfather?"  In 
which  joke  there  is  an  element  of  truth.  The 
Washington  people  now  say  that  they  ask,  "What 
can  he  do?"  I  think  that  to  a  very  perceptible 
extent  this  epigram  is  true. 

The  interesting  thing  about  social  life  here  is 
that  you  meet  so  many  different  sorts  of  people. 
You  would  not  be  surprised  much  if  one  of  them 
had  three  arms,  or  if  another  had  wings,  or  if 
another  had  some  sort  of  ears  or  eyes  which  repre- 
sented a  seventh  or  an  eighth  sense.     By  this 


THE  NEW   WASHINGTON 


409 


I  mean  that  the  habits  of  one  man  have  been  so 
unHke  those  of  another  that  you  are  somewhat 
surprised  that  you  find  yourself  talking  English 
with  them  all.    They  do  not  know  it  themselves, 


State,  War,  and  Navy  Building. 

but  they  really  live  a  good  deal  each  man  in  his 
own  world. 

I  said  above  that  in  the  old  days  everybody 
in  Washington  kept  the  run  of  the  proceedings 
in  Congress,  but  now  those  people  keep  the  run 
of  the  proceedings  in  Congress  whose  business 
it  is  to  know  what  the  proceedings  in  Congress 


410      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

are.  But  you  shake  hands  with  a  press  reporter 
and  go  up  into  the  office  of  the  ''How  To  Do  It 
Bureau,"  to  find  a  gentleman  who  has  not  thought 
of  Congress  for  a  week.  He  probably  knows 
that  Mr.  Cannon  is  the  Speaker  of  the  House, 
he  is  quite  sure  that  he  has  heard  of  Mr.  Gorman 
and  Mr.  Lodge  in  the  Senate.  But  he  dismisses 
them  because  they  are  doing  their  business; 
he  is  doing  his.  Well,  it  is  a  little  as  I  once  had 
in  the  same  week  a  letter  from  James  Haverstock 
in  Burnside's  army  to  ask  me  if  I  could  tell  him 
where  his  brother  John  was;  and  I  had  another 
note  from  John  Haverstock  to  ask  me  if  I  could 
tell  him  where  James  Haverstock  was.  I  wrote 
to  each  of  them  that  his  brother  was  in  the  same 
brigade  in  North  Carolina  that  he  was  in  himself, 
and  that  if  he  would  get  a  pass  from  the  colonel 
he  could  go  over  and  see  him.  James  and  John 
were  both  in  their  duty;  they  were  serving  God, 
as  the  Prayer-Book  puts  it,  in  the  condition  of 
life  where  he  had  appointed  them. 

And  it    is   a   little  in  the  same  way  that  the 
gentleman  in  the  "How  To  Do  It  Bureau"  knows 


THE  NEW   WASHINGTON 


411 


that  the  leaders  of  the  Senate  and  the  House 
understand  their  business  better  than  he  does, 
and  does  not  bother  his  head  about  them  at  all. 
On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Lodge  and  Mr.  Cannon 
have  had  things   of  certain  importance  to  do. 


Patent  Office. 

They  have  gained  that  certain  experience  of  life 
and  so  they  really  think  that  the  man  in  the 
''How  To  Do  It  Bureau"  knows  more  than  they 
do  about  the  handling  of  yellow  fever  and  the 
irrigation  of  Arizona.    And  this  is  to  say  that  they 


412      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

have  arisen  to  that  subhme  height  in  which  a  man 
obeys  the  instructions  which  are  given  to  the 
Thessalonians. 

As  I  have  intimated,  there  is  another  element 
in  the  Washington  of  to-day  in  which  the  city 
differs  entirely  from  what  I  call  irreverently  the 
Virginia  "mud-hole"  of  1844.  By  exactly  the 
same  law  which  sends  the  geese  and  ducks  from 
beyond  the  equator  to  Bird  Rock  in  the  Gulf 
of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  then  sends  them  back 
again,  a  flock  quite  as  large  of  New  Englanders 
and  New  Yorkers  pass  south  every  winter  to 
Florida  and  Georgia  and  perhaps  Mexico  and  then 
pass  north  again  as  the  spring  opens;  earlier  or 
later,  as  the  counsels  of  men  or  women  happen 
to  prevail  in  the  separate  families  of  the  migrators. 
Well,  exactly  as  the  geese  and  ducks  and  rice- 
birds  have  to  stop  sometimes  to  rest  themselves 
in  their  flight,  nine-tenths  of  the  people  from  the 
North  have  to  stop  at  Washington  to  give  two 
or  three  days  to  inquiries  as  to  the  government 
of  the  country  and  how  it  is  administered.  They 
do  not  stop  at  Chester  or  Perryville  or  Baltimore, 


THE  NEW   WASHINGTON  413 

though  the  train  stops  at  those  places.  But  at 
Washington  they  stop  and  spend  what  Miss 
Ferrier  calls  the  rest  day,  the  di'ess  day,  and  the 
press  day.  Then  they  go  on.  Those  same  birds 
do  not  stop  when  they  come  back,  but  the  tenth 
part  which  did  not  stop  when  they  went  on  stop 
when  they  return. 

This  constant  renewal  of  life,  all  belonging,  as 
you  observe,  to  the  immediate  family  of  the  Sov- 
ereign of  the  nation,  gives  a  curious  element,  or 
bright  spots  of  gold,  if  you  please,  to  each  day, 
such  as  I  have  never  observed  in  any  other  place 
in  which  I  have  lived.  It  is  a  very  interesting 
element.  It  does  Washington  a  great  deal  of 
good  and  it  does  this  American  people  a  great 
deal  of  good.  In  proportion  as  they  make  a 
longer  or  shorter  stay,  for  the  rest  of  their  lives 
they  believe  the  newspapers  less  or  more  when  they 
read  about  Washington,  and  are  better  or  worse 
informed  as  to  the  real  government  of  the  nation. 

To  meet  such  featherless  birds  of  passage,  if  you 
are  of  the  temperament  of  the  people  who  like 
that  sort  of  thing,  you  will  look  in  at  the  Arling- 


414 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


ton  or  the  New  Willard  or  the  Driscoll  or  the 
Normandie  or  all  of  them  every  day  and  shake 
hands  with  Mrs.  Vanderlip,  to  whom  you  gave 
her  degree  at  Chautauqua  in  1893,  or  with  Mr. 
Champernoon,  whose  father  was  at  school  with 


f=*  .^esi.  ^6=5f  .«csa  X^ 

J5I  'W\i  'i  1^  '1   3'  'mttt^ 

11  iiMii    M.  .r-  .^.  f^|K 

h1 

White  House. 


you  at  the  Latin  School  in  1833.  They  will  tell 
you  the  last  news  from  New  Padua  or  Fort  Fair- 
field, and  you  will  tell  them  whether  the  Cabinet 
changes  mean  a  quarrel  or  have  been  foreordained 
from  centuries.     If,  while  you  are  talking  with  one 


THE   XEW   WASHINGTON  415 

or  two  of  them  in  the  great  common  hall  which 
is  now  a  part  of  every  hotel,  there  turns  up  a  very 
bright  and  intelligent-looking  fellow  whom  they 
do  not  know  but  whom  you  do  know,  and  the  con- 
versation suddenly  changes  to  Nansen's  book  or 
to  the  temperature  of  Wilkes's  Land  in  the  Ant- 
arctic, that  is  because  this  gentleman  is  a  press 
correspondent.  I  like  these  gentlemen,  and  they 
have  been  promoted  step  by  step  in  journalism 
till  they  occupy  the  most  important  post  in  the 
metropolitan  journals.  At  the  same  time,  I 
cannot  but  observe  that  their  presence  in  any 
circle  is  apt  to  throw  a  restraint  upon  the  con- 
versati(3n  there.  If  it  happens  sometimes,  oc- 
casionally let  us  grant,  but  still  sometimes,  that 
the  metropolitan  journal  or  the  metropolitan 
correspondent  does  not  voice  the  latest  whisper 
of  the  Washington  circles,  it  is  because  of  a  cer- 
tain reticence  which  is  natural  enough  when  they 
are  present. 

Now,  let  us  contrast  all  this  with  the  old  Wash- 
ington. I  was  walking  down  town  one  morning 
in  1844  and  I  met  Joseph  Grinnell,  who  was  a 


416 


TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 


member  of  Congress  from  New  Bedford.  I  joined 
him,  and  he  told  me  the  morning's  news.  Samuel 
Hoar  had  arrived  from  Charleston  with  his  daugh- 


TuST  Office. 


ter,  having  been  turned  out  of  that  city  by  a  mob 
of  gentlemen,  who  waited  upon  him  and  told  him 
that  if  he  did  not  leave  Charleston  with  his  daugh- 
ter a  mob  of  blackguards  would  compel  him  to 


THE   NEW   WASHINGTON  417 

do  so.  Samuel  Hoar  would  have  been  as  willing 
to  die  from  a  Charleston  pistol  as  any  man,  but 
he  rightly  measured  the  position,  and  with  his 
daughter  took  the  steamboat  for  Wilmington, 
and  came  up  to  Washington.  This  was  seventeen 
years  before  Sumter,  but  Grinnell  knew  that  it 
was  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War.  Before  the 
morning  had  passed  I  had  written  to  the  Daily 
Advertiser  in  Boston  the  news  of  this  crisis,  and  in 
two  or  three  days  the  letter  arrived  in  Boston. 
It  was  printed  in  the  next  morning's  Advertiser,  and 
in  a  day  more  it  was  in  New  York.  It  was  copied 
in  the  New  York  journals,  and  was  the  first  news 
which  those  journals  printed  of  a  transaction 
which  we  now  know  was  critical  in  the  affairs  of 
men.  I  do  not  think  there  was  a  professional 
newspaper  correspondent  in  Washington  in  the 
year  1844.  I  do  know  of  our  correspondents 
in  the  Boston  Advertiser  office,  that  the  letters 
were  from  Mr.  Winthrop  and  Mr.  Grinnell  and 
Mr.  Choate,  all  members  of  Congress  who  had  no 
idea  that  the  Advertiser  would  need  other  infor- 
mation than  they  could  give  it.     In  earlier  years 

2e 


418      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

the  letters  which  will  be  found  there  by  careful 
historians  are  from  Edward  Everett,  Rufus  Choate, 
Robert  Winthrop,  Daniel  Webster,  Joseph  Story, 
and  one  or  other  New  England  Representatives. 
The  earliest  letter  from  my  brother  is  of  the  date 
of  1843.  The  gentlemen  of  the  press  will  excuse 
me  and  will  agree  with  me  when  I  say  that  the 
physical  necessity  which  now  compels  so  many 
square  inches  of  news  a  day,  whether  there  be  any 
news  or  not,  has  not  improved  the  quality  of  the 
daily  letters  which,  naturally  enough,  the  local 
press  of  every  city  has  to  print  every  morning 
or  evening. 

There  was  no  better  sign  of  the  times  in  those 
early  days  than  one  could  see  in  any  issue  of  the 
Charleston  dailies.  Observe  that  not  one  of  them 
printed  more  than  five  hundred  copies.  How 
they  lived  Heaven  knows.  But  they  did  have  an 
impudent  habit  of  omitting  national  news,  as  if 
it  were  only  by  accident  that  they  had  any  con- 
cern with  it.  Exactly  as  the  Tribune  has  no  sepa- 
rate heading  every  day  of  the  action  of  the  Swiss 
government,  so  the  Charleston   Courier    did  not 


THE  NEW   WASHINGTON  419 

recognize  what  was  going  on  at  Washington, 
except  as  it  would  an  incident  of  general  infor- 
mation. If  it  were  proposed  to  inspect  steam- 
boats on  Southern  rivers,  they  would  copy  the 
information  as  they  would  have  copied  a  motion 
in  the  British  Parliament  on  the  importing  of 
cotton. 

This  single  illustration  suggests  that  it  may 
be  well  to  put  in  words  the  central  distinction 
between  the  Washington  of  1844  and  that  of 
1905.  The  motto  of  the  Madisonian,  I  think 
the  paper  was  named,  which  pretended  to  be  the 
special  organ  of  the  general  government  in  those 
early  days,  was  in  the  words  attributed  to  Jeffer- 
son, ^^The  best  government  is  that  which  governs 
least."  I  cannot  fix  the  quotation,  and  the  fact 
that  the  Madisonian  said  it  was  from  Jefferson 
is  no  evidence  that  it  was  so.  But  when  you 
remember  that  in  John  Adams's  time,  when  the 
yellow  fever  was  in  Philadelphia,  Adams  went 
to  Braintree  and  the  other  members  of  his  little 
Cabinet  to  their  respective  homes,  and  one  might 
say  there  was  no  general  government  practically 


420      TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

for  many  months  till  the  Philadelphia  fright  was 
over,  you  understand  what  happened  before  the 
People  were  really  wonted  to  the  idea  of  a  nation. 
You  get  traces  of  the  same  thing  when  you  find 
that  Jefferson  never  alludes  to  cotton-gins  or 
steamboats,  and  that  as  far  down  as  Jackson's 
time  there  were  plenty  of  men  to  say  that  Con- 
gress could  not  appropriate  money  for  a  national 
road  to  the  West. 

Now  you  remember,  by  contrast,  quite  enough 
instances  of  coy  indifference  to  national  duties 
in  your  visits  at  different  departments  to-day. 
Here  is  the  Department  of  Agriculture;  it  sends 
its  agents  over  the  world.  A  man  in  Guatemala 
finds  ants  which  will  destroy  the  cotton  weevil 
in  Texas,  a  man  in  northern  China  collects  and 
brings  home  peach-stones  of  a  variety  invaluable 
to  America.  But  if  you  had  proposed  a  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture  in  John  Tyler's  time,  you 
would  have  been  told  that  the  Constitution  gave 
no  power  for  any  such  thing.  Or  you  go  to  Dr. 
Harris  at  the  Bureau  of  Education;  he  is  in  cor- 
respondence with  all  the  states  and  all  the  ter- 


THE   NEW    WASHINGTON  421 

ritories  right  and  left;  he  is  sending  or  receiving 
information  for  the  whole  nation.  As  a  little 
side  amusement  and  play  the  Department  of 
Education  has  changed  the  whole  interior  life 
of  Alaska  by  introducing  reindeer  from  Siberia. 
Now,  to  have  proposed  a  Board  of  Education  in 
1840  would  have  been  madness. 

The  Civil  War  changed  all  that.  As  I  am  fond 
of  saying,  the  United  States  is  a  nation,  while  our 
Southern  masters  were  then  saying  all  the  time 
the  United  States  are  a  confederacy.  They  pre- 
tended, when  the  President  made  an  official  pro- 
nouncement, that  he  held  just  the  same  relation 
to  the  United  States  as  the  Queen  of  Holland  now 
holds  to  the  forty  states  which  have  consented 
to  the  Hague  conventions.  But  nobody  says 
this  now.  Sam  Adams  and  Patrick  Henry  from 
their  seats  in  any  other  world  look  with  amaze- 
ment though  with  satisfaction  on  a  capital  of 
a  nation  which  extends  from  sea  to  sea.  It  is 
a  nation  which  understands  home  rule  as  nobody 
else  understands  it.  Yet  at  the  same  time  it  is 
a  nation  which  is  not  afraid  to  pick  up  a  pin  or  to 


422     TARRY  AT  HOME  TRAVELS 

launch  a  navy  if  the  needs  of  the  nation  require. 
At  this  moment  the  Department  of  Agriculture 
is  engaged  in  the  irrigation  of  a  million  square 
mileS;  be  the  same  more  or  less.  If  you  ask 
them,  as  the  British  commander  asked  Ethan 
Allen,  by  what  authority  they  are  acting,  the 
Department  of  Agriculture  would  say,  as  he  said, 
that  they  are  at  work  ^'in  the  name  of  God  and 
the  Continental  Congress."  They  would  not  talk 
about  state  sovereignty  or  state  supremacy. 
They  would  say,  I  hope,  that  a  good  many  million 
people  in  the  world  are  asking  God  for  their  daily 
bread,  and  it  is  the  business,  as  He  orders,  of  the 
Department  of  Agriculture,  to  enlarge  the  world's 
produce  of  daily  bread.  ''Time  works  with  us," 
they  will  say,  ''and  in  a  few  years  we  will  give 
you  farms  which  produce  a  hundred  bushels 
to  an  acre  where  the  cactus  or  the  mesquite  now 
struggle  for  their  lives." 

Yes,  the  agonies  of  the  four  years  between 
the  15th  of  April,  1861,  and  the  3d  of  April, 
1865,  can  never  be  fully  told :  but  this  is  certain, 
that  the  God  of  history  has  already  given  us  the 


THE   XEW  WASHINGTON  423 

compensation  for  such  agonies,  as  in  the  forty 
years  which  have  passed  since  He  has  made  it 
certain  to  the  eighty  milhon  people  between  the 
Atlantic  and  the  Pacific  that  the  United  States 
is  a  nation. 

In  the  second  year  of  the  Civil  War,  a  distin- 
guished English  traveller  said  to  me  that  it  was 
all  very  well  to  keep  on  fighting,  ''but,  of  course, 
you  know,  there  cannot  be,  you  know,  a  nation 
extending  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  There 
never  has  been  such  a  nation  and  there  never  will 
be.  You  will  have  to  arrange  for  four  different 
nations  to  cover  that  territory."  To  whom  I 
replied,  with  rage  hardly  concealed,  ''There  never 
has  been  such  a  nation,  but  it  is  the  will  of  God 
that  there  shall  be,  and  you  will  see  that  that  is 
what  we  are  fighting  for." 

Now,  precisely  as  Jerusalem  was  a  city  guided 
by  the  priesthood,  even  if  the  technical  rule  was 
in  the  hands  of  soldiers,  as  Lowell  is  a  city  of 
weavers  and  spinners,  as  New  York  is  a  city  of 
tradesmen  buying  and  selling,  as  Princeton  is  a 
city  of  students  and  teachers,  so  is  Washington 


424  TAKRY  AT   HOME   TRAVELS 

a  city  of  men  and  women  who  are  fed  by  the  nation, 
who  work  for  the  nation,  who  hve  for  the  nation, 
and  as  the  nation  chooses.  Granting  that  half 
of  them  have  ties  and  memories  which  bind  them, 
say,  to  Georgia  or  Minnesota  or  the  state  of  Maine, 
or  to  other  states ;  granting  that  some  of  them 
even  go  to  vote  in  those  states  as  a  sort  of  gallant 
symbol  of  their  birth  and  education,  all  this  is 
but  a  trifle,  because  their  life  is  a  national  life. 
Twenty-five  thousand  people  is  a  large  number 
when  you  remember  that  the  population  of  the 
white,  which  is  the  ruling  race  in  the  city,  all  told, 
is  not  more  than  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand. 
When  we  were  schoolboys,  we  used  to  say  with 
James  Otis,  ''One-fifth  are  fighting  men."  I  sup- 
pose we  could  say  of  Washington  now  that  one- 
fifth  of  its  white  residents  are  in  the  direct  service 
of  Uncle  Sam  —  of  the  government  of  the  United 
States.  Now,  for  the  loyal  love  which  these  peo- 
ple bear  to  the  Union,  to  the  nation  of  which  they 
are,  by  whom  they  w^ere  nursed,  there  was  really 
nothing  to  compare  in  the  Washington  of  1844, 
if  you    left    out    perhaps    the    members    of   the 


THE   NEW   AVASHIXGTOX  425 

Cabinet.  This  man  was  a  Virginian,  that  man  was 
a  Carolinian,  and,  sandwiched  in  with  them, 
one  in  a  dozen,  was  some  Northern  man  with 
Southern  principles,  but  who  would  have  called 
himself  a  Xew  Yorker  or  a  Michigan  man,  while 
his  own  successors  in  office  to-day  would  say 
gladly  and  proudly  that  they  are  Americans. 


INDEX 


Abbot,  George  J.,  378. 
Agassiz,  Louis,  15. 
Agricultural  Department,  406, 

420. 
Allen,  Ethan,  102,  237. 
Alpha  Delta  Phi,  323. 
Amherst  College,  157. 
Andrew,  John  Albion,  14. 
Armstrong,  Samuel  C,  45. 
Ashburton,  Lord,  9,  16,  42. 

B 

Bar  Harbor,  44. 
Barnstable,  ISO. 
Beecher,  Lyman,  245. 
Bennington,  126. 
Berkeley,  214. 
Bethlehem,  N.H..  68. 
Block,  Adrian,  199. 
Blue  Laws,  230. 
Boston,  frigate,  330. 
Bowdoin  College,  31,  47. 
Bowdoin,  James,  45. 
Bristol,  Rhode  Island,  210. 
Brown,  John  Carter,  227. 
Bulfinch,  Charles,  361. 
Burgoyne,  John,  Gen.,  120. 
Burlington,  105. 
Butler,  Gen.  B.  F.,  353. 

C 

Calthrop,  Rev.,  337. 
Cayugas,  335. 

Champlain,  Samuel  cle,  112. 
Channing,  William  F.,  32. 
Charter  Oak,  116,  231. 
Chase,  Pliny  E.,  7,  32. 


Chastellux,  Marquis  de,  202. 
Columbia  River,  187. 
Connecticut  River,  69. 
Connecticut,  the  State,  228. 
Corson,  Professor,  337. 
Crosby,  W.  O.,  38. 
Cuttyhunk,  140. 

D 

Dartmouth  College,  74. 
Dartmouth,  Lord,  74. 
Dawes,  H.  S.,  senator,  190. 
Defoe,  353. 

Divisor  and  Dividend,  2. 
Dixville  Notch,  69. 
Dummer  Fort,  98. 
Dwight,  Dr.,  7. 

E 

Ellicott,  Andrew,  355,  361. 
Ellsworth,  Oliver,  233. 
Erie  Canal,  3. 
Erie  Railway,  334. 
Everett,  John,  Capt.,  90. 


FiA'c  Nations,  335. 
Fox,  George,  216. 
Francis,  Colonel,  122. 
Eraser,  Simon,  Gen.,  118. 
Frye,  Wm.  P.,  senator,  53. 

G 

Gaspee,  destruction  of,  203. 
General  Sullivan,    canal-boat. 
149. 


427 


428 


INDEX 


Geiiymander,  172. 

Glon  Famil}^  319. 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  356. 

Gosnold,  139. 

Gray,  Prof.  Asa,  196. 

Greene,  Nathaniel,  Gen.,  213, 

226. 
Greenleaf  Family,  54. 
Greenough,  Richard,  219. 

H 

Hale,  Nathan,  Capt.,  245. 
Hale,  Nathan,  Col.,  123. 
Hale,  Nathan,  of  Mass.,  22. 
Hales     of     Newbury,     Rhode 

Island,     Connecticut,     New 

Hampshire,  26. 
Hartford,  239. 
Harvard  College,  173. 
Hayes,  Francis  B.,  56. 
Hoar,  Sam'l,  416. 
Hopkins,  Esek,  211,  214. 
"Hub    of    the   Universe,"   12, 

145. 
Hudson,  Hendrik,  13. 
Huidekoper,  Jan,  336. 
Hull,  Judith,  204. 
Hutchinson,  Anne,  71. 
Hyde,  Dr.  W.  D.,  46. 


Idealists,  a  state  of,  223. 
Iroquois  Indians,  8. 


Jack,  Colonel,  353. 

Jackson,  Dr.  Charles  Thomas, 

28. 
Judith  Point,  203. 

K 

Katahdin,  Mt.,  20,  37. 
Kemble,  Fanny,  331. 
Knox,  Thomas,  54. 
Kropotkin,  110. 


Laurentian  Rocks,  15. 
L'Enfant,  Peter  C,  361. 
Libraries  in  New  York,  345. 
Lindsey,  Adam,  379. 
Little  Falls,  325. 
Longfellow,     H.    W.,    29,    59, 

177. 
I-ongfellow,  Sanmel,  29,  56. 
Longfellow,  Judge  Stephen,  31, 

56. 

M 

MacDonough,  Com.,  128. 
Macomb,  Alex.,  Gen.,  127. 
Madison,  Mrs.  James,  381. 
Madisonian,  newspaper,  419. 
Maine,  20,  25. 
Maine  Law,  62. 
Marsh,  Geo.  Perkins,  131. 
Massachusetts,  139. 
Miranda,  142. 
Mohawk  Indians,  335. 
Mohawk  Valley,  304. 
Moore,  Thomas,  330. 
Morgan  Horse,  136. 
Morison,  Nath.  H.,  32. 
Mount  Vernon,  367. 
Mount  Washington,  65. 

N 

Navv  yard,  Washington,  388. 
New"^  England,  11,  19. 
Newport,  201,  214. 
Niagara,  329. 
Nott,  Eliphalet,  312. 


O 

Oneidas,  335. 
Onondagas,  335. 


Packard,  Prof.  Alpheus  S.,  52. 
Patent  Office,  411. 


INDEX 


429 


Pecquawket  or  Pigwachct,  71. 

Petaqiianiscot,  206. 

Portsmouth,  71. 

Post  Office,  Washington,  416. 

Presbytery,  71. 

Proctor  marble  c(uarries,   135. 

Q 

Quinc}^  Josiah,  349. 
Quinc}-  Railway,  147. 
Quincy  Town,  152. 

R 

Red  Jacket,  315. 
Revere,  Paul,  161. 
Rhode  Island,  199. 
Rhododendron,  199. 
Robinson  Crusoe,  354. 
Robinson,  John,  179. 
Rochambeau,     Marshal,     201, 

239. 
Rochester,  city  of,  337. 


St.  Clair,  Gen.  Arthur,  121. 
St.  Lawrence  Ri\er,  325. 
Saunders,  Alexander,  321. 
Saunders,  Anne,  319. 
Sawj^er,  Harry,  69. 
Senecas,  338. 
Sewall,  Samuel,  205. 
Smibert,  John,  220. 
Southampton,  Earl  of,  140. 
Sparks,  Jared,  41,  226. 
Spooner,  69. 

Spra42;ue,  Charles,  quoted,  327. 
Stark,  John,  Gen.,  91,  119. 
State    Department,   Washing- 
ton, 371,  409. 


Stiles,  Rev.  Ezra,  346. 
Stuart,  Gilbert,  220. 
Sugar  Loaf  Hill,  209. 
Sumner,  Charles,  193. 
Syracuse,  322. 


"Tempest,"  Shakespeare's,  141. 
Texas,  Annexation  of,  391. 
Thoreau,  H.  D.,  191. 
Trumbull,  Jonathan,  235. 
Tuscaroras,  335. 
Tyler,  John,  395. 

U 

United  States,  The,  421. 
University  of  New  York,  343. 


Veazie  Railroad,  148. 
Vermont,  21,  98. 

W 

Washburn,  E.  B.,  57. 
Washington,  City  of,  370,  414. 
Washington,  George,  304,  349. 
Wayland,  Francis,  225. 
Wavside  Inn,  184. 
WeJDster,    Daniel,    12,    16,    42, 

156. 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  130. 
Wheelock,   Eleazar,  73. 
White,  Andrew  D.,  337. 
Wilkinson,  Jemima,  336. 
^^'iIliams,  Roger,  208. 
Winslow,  Edward,  131. 
Worcester,  182,  183. 
Wright,  CarroU,  President,  186. 


BY   THE   SAME   AUTHOR 


"BIRTHDAY  EDITION 


The  Man  Without  a  Country 


Illustrated   with  a   Portrait  of  the  Author 


Cloth  8vo  $3.00  net 


Printed  with  large,  bold  type  on  handsome,  heavy  paper,  it  is  the 
finest  edition  that  has  ever  yet  been  published  of  the  remarkable 
American  classic,  which  is  not  surpassed,  nor  even  yet  in  any 
degree  approached,  in  setting  forth  as  a  prominent  trait  the 
desirable  virtue  of  American  patriotism. 


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Memories  of  a  Hundred  Years 

Profusely  Illustrated 

Cloth  8vo  $2.50  net 

"  Dr.  Hale's  work  is  more  than  a  mere  patchwork  of  recollections  and  docu- 
ments. It  is  a  story  which  moves.  It  is  a  history  built  up  from  person- 
alities and  broadened  in  conclusions  and  estimates.  It  is  biography  of 
the  best  kind,  for  it  constantly  sets  over  against  an  intimate  view  of  the 
subject  the  theories  of  those  who  are  remote.  The  phases  through  which 
the  country  has  developed  —  in  politics,  industry,  sociology,  culture  — 
are  revealed  in  shifting  scenes,  while  one  event  after  another,  or  one 
person  after  another,  is  brought  directly  into  the  focus  of  personal 
contact."  —  The  Outlook. 

"The  marvellous  thing  about  his  memoirs  is  the  range  of  interests  which  they 
cover.  ...  If  any  man  alive'  to-day  is  fitted  to  be  the  historian  in  his 
own  proper  person  of  the  last  hundred  years  in  America,  it  is  certainly 
he." —  Thi  Review  of  Revieivs. 

"The  personality  of  the  writer  saturates  its  every  page,  a  personality  which, 
having  the  defects  of  its  qualities,  is  as  interesting  as  it  is  unique." 

—  The  New  York  Evening  Post. 

"Edward  Everett  Hale  has  told  the  story  of  progress  of  the  American  people 
during  the  nineteenth  century,  first  from  the  oral  and  written  records  of 
his  family,  and  then  from  the  personal  experiences  of  his  long  life  of 
fourscore  years,  aided  by  letters  and  other  manuscripts  in  his  possession. 
Life  and  individuality  are  thus  given  to  the  history  of  the  epoch,  with 
views  of  men  and  things  so  original  as  to  be  beyond  the  powers  of  the 
iriere  compiler.     Therein  lies  the  great  charm  and  the  value  of  the  work." 

—  San  Fra7icisco  Chronicle. 

"The  hundred  years  is  no  misnomer;  and  we  feel  that  we  are  always  listening 
to  a  man  who,  almost  from  his  first  youth,  was  in  touch  with  the  currents 
of  national  life  and  in  deep  sympathy  with  the  deeper  pulses  of  the 
national  spirit."  —  The  Churchman. 


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